The Setting of the Sun: Part One

She no longer rules the waves, no longer is heard the chink of ice in gin glass beneath darkening Indian skies; what jewels glisten in the corroding crown, how happy now this happy breed who bows collective heads and cries? History’s pain trawled across the planet face, when slaughter ruled and oppression demarcated the only foreign policy; exploitation and enslavement of the weak, colonialism and the salvage rights the tools of peace and democracy. Empires of muscle, iron and discipline, forged on the blood, bone and murder of millions, so proud, so pleased as punch; a bullish bite spreading wildfire rabies, mad dogs and Englishmen permanently out to lunch. Empires of dreams, of glittering prizes, home of the brave where freedom’s flame burned naked and bright; a cultural plague preaching death, destruction, fed on subservient carcasses in sinister shadows of night. And now in dying feel-good days, clinging to glorious dreams of the past, of powder, bayonet, cannon and gun; achievements in the global butcher’s yard may be all that remains in bearing witness to the setting of the sun...