The summer of 1990: we’d turned out for what proved the last
Revolution Day parade
Under the gloating new signs that said TRAFALGAR SQUARE
(We didn’t call it that)
And for the last time the marching band of the People’s Army
Played the old anthems
So the windows all rattled in McDonald’s and the
Teenagers were silenced
And as always the procession ended with the Internationale
Like the partisans sang
In the woods and the hills and in Hitler and Edward’s prisons
Before Liberation
And as always when they got to the line about ‘changing
The old conditions’
They flaunted their cymbals in the air with bright ostentation
And we all cheered