Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

Because that’s what this

is, that’s what we’re writing

within this geopolitical Bardo

where we – sorry, a decisive 

majority of us – have decided

that nostalgia is the best form

of statecraft to respond to a

future of heatproof algorithms 

fighting wars that the humans

don’t survive. I believed it

once too, that currency unions

decay but nations never die, 

that subsidiarity was a theory

never tested, that the acquis

was common the way silk

handcuffs are. But then war 

never killed our glory, and we

were never de-illusioned, just

disillusioned – why can’t we

play the Blitz every week please? 

So now we wait outside this

Berlaymont purgatorio,

dreaming of lions swimming

across la Manche, unicorns 

conquering continents, the people’s

bloodhounds chasing complexity’s

fox. Look! we have Dover’s

liberating cliff-edge coming up, 

because we are never freer

than when we are falling to

victory over the imperial lorry

park formerly known as Kent – 

and is that RMS Dambusters we

see gunning towards the fishing

fields? To bellow and buccaneer 

hotly is the only way to die, chums! 

In the next place, the cherries

are there to be picked, and the

sound of Lord North squealing,

“Lads, someone’s fucked up 

more than me!” is sweet nectar

to Empire 2.0, and we forget 

that the answer to the question is:

the dead are perfectly sovereign.