A Prelude

I, a traveller, weary after the days labour
Stare out at an aging evening, all energies concentrated on
Driving the train of thought. iridescent lights,
Smiling models and happy children silently from billboards proclaim:
It is always fashionable to be fashionable;
The train gropes backwards, brakes intermittently clenching
Tracks at deserted stops of forgotten memories.

1) The story of fashion.

Mighty empires, cursed by gun powder, crumbled; were soon conquered,
And at the summit of human civilisation stood, the English gentleman
(Today found in largely reduced circumstances), his stiff
Upper lip, replaced by the shake of the hip-
The generation-X which upon the crag today stands, unfazed
By Flower Power, the times that ware a-changin’.

2) Fashion in the present.

Diversity, accepted and praised, ‘being yourself’ is
Being modern, says the wind. Time waits
As the dancers sway, the true meaning lost, drowned in the din,
In the haste to do their steps in time, in strange costumes
And in stranger lives.
O being modern is in the mind, in the heart, in the soul;
Not in a PC, in address, in a goal.

An epilogue

As my weariness dissolves into the night,
I think of tomorrow, the dreams that I shall entertain;
For my journey must go on, the search for the reward, the answer
Which is so easy, so simple that
The chafing breeze could now whisper it into my ear:
A simple four letter word that is never out of fashion;
But being so close, it must always remain
A million miles away