One day all the old people will wise up
tear off their medicalerts and rise up
they’ll finally decide they’ve had enough
of the endless emollient creams and stuff
the scratchy stockings and handy grabbers
the phlebotomists and care home managers
and they’ll move as one to the coded signal
of a renegade grandma in Newport Pagnell
who entered retirement unconvinced
by Murder She Wrote and the purple rinse
by adverts for scooters and fancy lifts
ballpoint pens and benefits
who stole a ship and escaped to sea
to rally the cause electronically
hacking the loops and hearing aids
of the millions who’ll build the barricades
from static commodes and stools and hoists
and taunt the police in one croaky voice
and when the army arrives in tanks and trucks
meet them with vollies of tommee tippee cups
and the soldiers will not deploy their weapons
because they couldn’t shoot Joan or Uncle Kevin
and the rebels will mass at the top of the street
and bang their zimmers and stamp their slippered feet
and their fighting colours will snap overhead
(an overweight pug and a flaming bed)
and so shall it begin, the grey terror of the world
dressing gowns gaping and hair uncurled
(because they may be weak, and they may be confused
but they’re old and they’re fierce and they’ve got nothing to lose)