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The Mocha Parade

Updated: Dec 30, 2023

The burning moonlight strikes

on plastic bags that shake

For the howling wind suggests

The boys will not be late.


The residents they sighed,

For they never could delay,

The Old Guard’s final march

Down old Mocha Parade.


They cruised down that wide open boulevard

With the urgency

Of men walking toward a certain fate.

Along the way,

stopping in each murky storefront reflection

To examine their all-conditions fabrics

And the technicalities and nuances

Of their tired eyes and fading looks.


As they continued down,

More windows slammed and shuttered.

Their protests began to grow.

‘Can’t get rid of me ya know pal.

I was a real somebody ya know!’


This-of course, believe me, absolutely, was the case.

They did not leave the moment

With a bang, or with disgrace.

For a time that felt forever

And Disappeared so fast

They’re the bollocks of yesterday.

They were the keepers of the past.


They’re desperate now, their only path will soon come to its end.

And they are so quickly dismissed,

by those new hip residents

On the MP, as they have taken to calling it

As if it weren’t short enough already?

The new kids hardly gave them a look,

Perhaps because they could not risk

seeing their own garments of rebellion,

Adorning the bygone lepers,

Except it’s the original, before they re-released them.


If only they had listened to the has-beens on the street

They might have found the truth.

Despite the bluster and insecurity

The has-beens had a clue.


The thing that takes you off your perch,

That drags you kicking and screaming into fading memory…

Out of the bloody exciting moment;

It is not justice, or some form of fair play,

But time.

We are king of the castle

for the time it takes to notice.

So when the Old Guard next arrives,

Give them a smile or wave,

For one day

it’ll be you,

that walks in twilight

Down the silent Mocha Parade.


By Samuel Wake

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