Revolution Day (2nd draft)

From the park
to Heroes Square
grandparents hold
their inheritors aloft
like flags, painted faces
blend into charcoal
helmets as beetles
swarm the streets,
slice the junctions
with guillotine blades,
an almost unnoticed
handover before coffee
shop windows.

Cyclists dismount,
trams judder, a tin
voice echoes over
conversations
about the varying
degrees of McDonalds
standardisation
across continents,
'But we haven't tried
Hungarian food yet'.
Remove and walk.

Blacked out eyes
of oil coach slugs
unloading ants
onto the pavement.
An old man flutters
against plastic shutters
in the tunnelled
underground,
resurface into the
eye storm,
a headlight looms
and fades.

The effigy burns
before Kaisers,
we trickle
through to a muffled
silence
like distant bombs,
the street pricked
with horses hoof prints,
the bridges noosed.
’Apocolypse,’
I whisper
as we meet you

at the escalator.