After Auden (Paysage immoralisé)

Hearing of children dying in parched valleys,
'Heretics' besieged on arid mountains,
The dispossessed adrift on dangerous water,
Marooned in squalor on picture postcard islands,
Living rough within our glittering cities -
We toss loose change to salve our burgeoning sorrow.

We, whose trite anxieties mask endless sorrow,
Sit by pools overlooking verdant valleys,
Or penthouse balconies in towering cities
With distant view of smog-smudged, snow-capped mountains -
Share Snapchat pics of migrants trapped on islands,
Feign outrage as we sip our sparkling water:

Big pharma commodified tap water,
Cyber gurus monetised our sorrow;
Watch C-list celebs shag on virtual islands,
Eden shot in lush, panoptic valleys:
Re-tweeted memes make molehills into mountains,
A smog of sadness spreads across our cities;

Watch super-heroes save imperilled cities,
Their magic powers holding back the water
Rising all around like shimmering mountains.
Strip-back the CGI, a world of sorrow
Overwhelms us, shadowing our golden valleys,
Inundating once hospitable islands:

Hopeless, these once hospitable islands;
Crumbling, these old imperial cities;

Forgotten, these empty, blossoming valleys.
No gods or heroes sweep across the water
To save us from our desolating sorrow
Looming before us like dark, impassable mountains.

Our future is an aftermath. Grey mountains,
Half submerged, shrunk to humid, swampy islands
Give beggarly shelter, but from our sorrow
There is no shelter. Couched in ruined cities
Ragged gangs skirmish over dwindling water;
Nearby, arcane cults skulk in sunbaked valleys.

And sorrow falls like mercurial melt water
From cloud-veiled mountains; esconced in bleak valleys
We dream of cities as viridian islands.