***Trigger Warning***
A critical look at imperialism as it pertains to the country I grew up in - Ireland. It is not meant as an attack, just a look at attitudes and feelings that exist in the wake of colonialism, even years after the events took place. I touch on famine and war and how the reaction to that is anger towards the occupying force. This is meant to be an exposition of emotion and the often suppressed pain that is felt by both the people of the land in question and the outside force that attempts to take over. Growing up it was clear to me that there is a lot of unacknowledged generational pain in the psyche of the Irish and how, by bringing this trauma into conscious awareness, we can transmute it and become bringers of peace and acceptance to our own lives and the lives of all we touch upon. 

I talk about the Great Thaw which I feel is happening now, in the collective unconscious of the human race. Old patterns are coming up to be recognised and met with awareness. In that we can release ancient pain that has lived in our minds and bodies for millennia. The history of humanity has been replete with violence. War has been endemic. I feel we are entering a new phase of our development where we can evolve beyond war and hatred and come to see our shared humanity in what was previously an “enemy”.

In doing this I look to my own mind and the biases and conflict inherent in it. I present this poem as evidence of all that remains to be healed in the context of the relationship between the Irish and British, a relationship fraught with tension and pain.
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“The English are bastards”
So the thought form goes 
They’ve battered the coast
With too many blows 
As the indigenous people
Barely survive 
They call us the “natives”
And dominion thrives 
In the land across the Irish Sea
And it wasn’t as though it was done to me 
But generations ago an early grave 
Roads to nowhere as though they could save
The peasants from the lowly tread
Between laziness and ending up dead
Coz the economy, now the IMF
Falls upon ears that are deaf
As they urge austerity
And who we used to be 
Comes springing to the fore 
Are we becoming who we were before
Victims to an imperial race 
They way they do it, it’s a damn disgrace
Now buildings are burning in China and Asia 
You talk about value like it doesn’t phase ya
As Western Civilisation rises 
On the back of others and it disguises
Its thinly veiled attempt
On the place where dignity went
Askew
And I’m talking to you
The top dog
As people work turf on the peat bog
Can you see through the fog
That hazes our vision 
And are all attempts just derision 
In an empty grave 
Must we all be somebody’s slave 
Or can we forgive 
Those who let live
On an ocean of pain
One thing we’re not lacking is skies of rain
And will it happen again
That old reign 
Of a country that just takes our grain 
When the people are starving
And I’m not for sparring 
Or getting even 
It’s just believing 
That the Queen can bow her head 
At our war dead 
In the Garden Of Remembrance
And all the disingenuousness
Fades away
A monarch, a symbol of sorry, okay
And we are just an island 
With its fair share of violence 
Embedded in its history
Pirates then subjects to inane victory
And Tuatha Dé Dannan
Not the sound of the cannon 
Firing on Liberty Hall
Is it just off the wall
To speak and expect it to be heard
If she sings will you listen to the bird 
Of woe and awe
I think we’re beginning the Great Thaw