The poem builds a picture of a city by piling up labels, each one a little different: a city of weekend rhythms, of strangers, of commerce, of unpaid rent. Even the phrase "the demanding-justice-of-the-city city" is stretched awkwardly, as if the speaker keeps trying to name the place and can't quite fit it into one description.
Then the poem turns. The city is "calling all the land / to come as coal," which makes the countryside a raw material to be dug up and burned. The last lines, "live cheap and raw / and be employed," sound like a bleak job offer. They suggest that people and land alike are asked to give up what they are in exchange for work.
The speaker never states anger outright, but the tone is cool and ironic. The title, "Neocolonial," points to a quiet kind of exploitation, where the city takes what it needs from elsewhere. The mood is dry, uneasy, and quietly accusing.