Source: New River Press

On 14 June 2017 afire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, United Kingdom. It caused 72 deaths, including two who later died in hospital. Over 70 others were injured. 223 people escaped. It was the worst residential fire in Britain since the end of the second world war.

THE TOWER OF BABYLON

THE TOWER OF BABYLON IS A BLACK WICKER BASKET
SMOKING INTO THE AZURE OF PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE
WHERE THE UNACCOUNTABLE DEAD NO LONGER SPEAK
A THOUSAND LANGUAGES IN A THOUSAND WINDOWS.

THE CONFUSION WAS ONLY EVER BETWEEN TWO LANGUAGES:
THE LANGUAGE OF THE RICH / THE LANGUAGE OF THE POOR.
RICH MOUTHS, POOR EARS, THEY’RE LIKE CHALK AND CHEESE
POOR MOUTHS, RICH EARS, THEY’RE LIKE CHALK AND CHEESE

‘WE WILL CLAD YOUR TOWER IN SUCH A DRESS OF BEAUTY
IT WILL STAND ON THE HORIZON LIKE A CATWALK MODEL’
AND LO! THE UGLY ZIGGURAT THEY BRANDED AN EYESORE
WAS NO LONGER ANATHEMA TO THE HIGH ONES OF BABYLON

‘THANK YOU FOR PRETTIFYING OUR OUT-OF-DATE ZIGGURAT
BUT NOW WE DON’T FEEL 100% SAFE IN OUR OWN HOMES’
AND LO! THE RICH EARS ONLY LISTENED TO RICH MOUTHS
WHILE THE POOR MOUTHS CONTINUED WITH THEIR BABBLE

THE FLAMES OF THE GODS BURNT OFF THE DESIGNER GOWN

AND SPOKE A LANGUAGE NO ONE THERE HAD EVER HEARD

OF HELLS ON EARTH (OF HELLS ON EARTH) NAKED

AND WALLS OF FUME (AND WALLS OF FUME) BARE-FORKED

THE HIGH ONES OF BABYLON RESPOND IN RICH LANGUAGE
BUT NOTHING BUT NOTHING BUT NOTHING IS DONE
POOR MOUTHS WILL TELL THE 24 STOREYS FOREVER
BUT RICH EARS HAVE ALREADY SWITCHED OFF / MOVED ON

THE TOWER OF BABYLON         IS A BLACK WICKER BASKET
THE TOWER OF BABYLON         IS A BLACK WICKER BASKET
THE TOWER OF BABYLON         IS A BLACK WICKER BASKET
THE TOWER OF BABYLON         IS A BLACK WICKER BASKET

Rupert Murdoch. Illustration by Ralph Steadman

MARDUK (neoliberal sonnet)

no loss mars you, winner lord. Babylon exults. the moneycomb sun
flares in your favour, barbed with policy, in the sub-edited days
you issue. your pornography and puns are crude and black as oil
but the massed ranks in your scriptorium work energetically
as wasps producing it, anxious to please their solar monarch.
alas, you’re too busy inspecting sewage of the sky’s imperium
and dipping cuneiform discs into lion droppings
– for pungency – to care about the hacksawing minions
who hoist your red letterhead onto a dawn of optic nerves.
Marduk
your orb is lethal,
your rod is laced
to end the fifth act of your psychodrama in a fall of corpses
while you rise the following day, coiled in American legs.
fire burns to the right and left wherever you have raged.
in the bald oven of your gold aura, Iraq bakes as you bid.

“Rupert Murdoch argued strongly for a war with Iraq in an interview this week. Which might explain why his 175 editors around the world are backing it too” – Roy Greenslade, 17 February 2003