Now We Are Five

Apocalypse I, jonny longmane, of no fixed abode, sleeper of a thousand doorways, pisser of derelict stairwells, diner on leftover lattes and throwaway fries, have seen through the eyes of god, pressed my grizzled visage into the mask of divinity and stared through portholes of omnipotence, onlooker at the end of days.

From flattened boxes and sodden mattresses, I have seen the screens at Piccadilly show footage of nerve-gassed children, newly orphaned, their eyes glassy with horror, as the suited crowds pressed on automaton, stroking their smartphones, and the tourists posed for selfies against a panoramic backdrop of smouldering cities.

I have seen my favourite benches grow spikes like medieval torture instruments, seen greed metastasise, spreading its tumours on hands and lips, fossilising the heart; I have counted it in the shrinking pile of coins in my upturned hat from year to year, as pounds gave way to pennies, cigarette butts, chewing gum, used condoms.

From the alleyway beside the cinema, I have felt the explosions shaking my sleeping bag, heard screams and gunfire amplifying my nightmares, but when I wake, shuddering, the crowd spills out laughing and taxis home from the apocalypse, mocking the homeless with brazen revelry, propping their lives on the tightrope of credit.

I have seen the children turning to smack for sanity, seen contrasts astronomical, incomputable: infants living on landfills while dogs ride in plush limousines; I have seen warzones viewed as fail compilations, journalists tweeting calls for genocide, and mass death commodified: ‘everything you need for your slaughterhouse’.

When I ran into the street, prophesying with the urgency of rain, they locked me up as a drunk. In the interludes of starvation, I am almost glad that I have nothing and am not complicit, not profiting from 85