Bullshit Detector

1983 and faux anarchic romanticism

seduces me. Squatting for peace

dreaming that the threat

of Threads is gone and Barefoot

Gen can sleep unhindered; ashen

shadows confined to graffiti.

The love of peace instigates

war and the dreamers

look to an El Dorado in the far

north; a land of milk, honey

and gold not spent; the convoy

takes the high road, to high ground.

The reluctant child the Pied Piper

left behind stares as the tail lights

pass into fog, moving from protest

to communal perfection.

2019 and for the first time

I visit the fabled site. Far from

a radical El Dorado, it peddles

alternative therapies, spiritual

retreats crystal bracelets. Tents

and benders, yurts and buses

replaced by identikit mobile

homes and permanence; radicalism

by concession; anarchy

by capitalism. I leave as

the tide edges from the bay.

Gulls and oystercatchers

scouring the mud for anything

that will sustain them.  I watch

as a detectorist, head down,

blind to the world, deaf to all

but the swooshes and wails

in his headphones, sweeps

across the sand and silt in search

of his own treasure. His own

El Dorado. Forlorn, he leaves

with a handful of rubbish –

dreams of wealth departing;

dashed against material rock.