Tag: alienation

The Concrete Jungle

.Reading time 4 minutes.
There is a boy somewhere far away
And I know that no matter what he may say
He can’t escape me 
Or erase me 
From his grasp
And the asp 
Bit me on the neck 
Of the dream I thought to wreck 
And I wonder when we both might die 
Me by accident and you because you want to try
To see what’s beyond the pale 
And I know what is not up for sale
But I have no cash to buy
Just the lashes I use to lie
About who I am 
I look away and that’s part of the plan 
Because I cannot let you see
That you have found your home in me 
Because I know that someday we’ll be separated 
Whether by force or because we’ve been education 
To believe in the divide
And I abide
Somewhere between God and Mass
Between being a good girl and getting an A in class
And it’s something growing up in an Ireland in transition 
Where people still use ammunition 
To fire at you 
While tolerance is preached to you in the pew
And it’s not okay to be gay
Then it is (or at least that’s what they say)
And I think of Stephen Gately 
And the people who cannot find a home lately 
As the rows erupt
And people on the news say that we’re fucked
But I see another scene 
And it resides in all that we’ve been 
In all these centuries 
And the millennia before they told us who we could be 
If we just believed 
But the dragon falls and I’m relieved 
Of the burden I bear 
And I watch the fabric tear 
On all that I thought I knew
This land always meant more to me than you 
And I know you’re somewhere in the city
And I tried it for a while but it’s a pity
But I missed the hills of Kilglass 
And the soul that pours through the grass 
In the fields so green 
The college was a concrete jungle of all I’d never been 
And I found some kind of refuge in Darragh
But my heart is like a sparrow
That sits on a lonely branch and sings
For the boys that gives air to its wings 
And the girls fight over what handbag is on brand 
And I just stare and watch the sand 
Slipping out of our hands 
And wonder why they don’t understand 
That they’re gripping something that is made of leather 
And won’t make them feel any better 
And I know I’ve got to get out of there
Then I find Tessa and Jennie and I know that they care
As we find some kind of peace in Nutgrove Avenue 
And I drove my own car down the roads of you 
As I stay up til five
Exuberant in the knowledge that you’re alive
Somewhere over there on the west coast 
And I don’t mean to boast 
But I think my man is the best 
Because he’s deeper than all the rest
And I cannot contemplate 
A series of x’s and y’s that do not equate
To you and I forever 
So I sail this endeavour 
To it’s logical conclusion 
My confession and your confusion

INFJ Problems

.Reading time 10 minutes.

I’ve no faith in any government, the Irish least of all
I used to believe in their ideals but then they let me fall
And the harsh reality of truth came crashing in
That its all about the politics and not what is within
That the lines they draw are just electioneering
And when I put forth my case it’s not me that they’re hearing
And there may be a TD standing here or there
That goes out of their way to help because they care
But it is the small run and they bleed themselves dry
Serving constituents that never tell them why
It’s not really the people, it’s the institution you see
And I cannot find a policy that will speak for me
And Republican Fenianism burnt me with its fire
Seems freedom was something to which I could aspire
But all of those proposals don’t really fit reality
When I think of what 1921 has given me
And I would burn the British for their soul destroying crimes
To see their kingdom fall, I would die a thousand times
Yes, I would stand up against na Sasanaigh and compel their withdrawal
Under a spirit that is strong and eyes that have seen it all
But the rage, it does not quench the ache their absence left
And I can hate them all I want, it doesn’t erase what it meant
To be surrendered slowly into a free fall
And all the buildings have crumbled where I tried to build a wall
And my anguish at a border that is only in our minds
We are a human people and these are the ties that bind
And the lesson that I learned from an ancient long ago
Was that you can only act according to the consciousness you sow
As St. Peter took his blade to the High Priest’s servant’s ear
If you take part in the conflict, you are Satan too, my dear
And how even righteous anger with the noble cause
Of defending the innocent should give you pause
I must bear this in mind with my contemporaneous peers
Who are glass bottling away somebody else’s years
And death is on horizons not too far away
For all the love I bore this place I realise I cannot stay
A prisoner of the land, worshipping its monument
The country has moved on but I don’t know where it went
And my values and my loves are suddenly out of sync
With a society that wants to control the way you think
Maybe I just never saw it, as a child, growing up
I was unaffected by the waves above
As I settled in the deep with oceans to explore
But now I am complicit I can’t condone it any more
And be a citizen of a state I just don’t believe in
They are building bridges over bodies that I am grieving
And they all march to a beat of unaware homogeny
They fall into step with what they don’t even see
And they can’t debate the issues because to raise a doubt
Has hoards at the back of what you can’t live without
To be told who I am, verbatim as per dictum
Like I could rote learn away the tenant you’re evicting
And scribe all my directions to unholy line my course
I will leave your sacrosanct and go without remorse
For I am not a pigeon parrot – a trainable bird
Who will give up my wings to repeat what I have heard
And you cannot colonise the way of my inner being
Even if you bend the world to reflect what you are seeing
There is a silent space, a sanctum and refuge
Beyond all definitions and the wars that people lose
Somewhere interior we meet humanity
And the universe breathes air into who we’re meant to be
I will meet you in that quiet when the road may take you there
But for now I will leave it to the everywhere
And relinquish my hold on a world I tried to love
I guess I’m not made for what I’d been thinking of
So let the darkness pull the peace that’s calls inside
These are my true colours but they are not mine to hide
I was gifted an awareness defying universal law
Gravity is just a confluence of observed phenomena
And what holds you in its arms is not a factor of the stars
Or black hole oblivion playing out inside your heart
The impenetrable, inescapable one Truth
Is that you are here when the furniture has been removed
Before it exists and after it is gone
You are the I am to which I belong
In the midst of all the motion, the effortlessly still
You may not see it now but I promise that you will
As it is revealed the light of your own sky
I never knew life til I was willing to die
Driven to distraction by the hopelessness of hell
Now I am in awe that that was a gift as well
Leading me to the edge til there was no where left to go
I dropped all my resistance and the existence I’d come to know
Whereon a bird alighted in a laughing Buddha frame
He called me to awaken and I responded to my name
As some otherworldly force took on the bones that I was moving
I saw the struggle and the hardship of a point that needed proving
And I was liberated from the shackles I’d sat in
Never knew that the key was where I begin
Understanding absolutely that I’ve always been the same
The permanent, unmoving within which things can change
But not the leaves of winter or the tree that sheds its skin
The transcendent beyond the sleep I was dreaming
All I venerated, the illusion of my pain
But there’s no suffering to bear in the interior domain
And I’m so full of gratitude that I was crucified
To realise euphorically I am not what died
Giddy with the feeling as I realise it’s true
That if I am immortal then so are you
And there is no dimension you do not permeate
Beyond all expressions we are oneness without state
So brimming with the joy I just cannot keep in
I jump into the waters where you are swimming
Get caught up with the tide as my head is going under
The storm is raining down and you’re the gravitas of thunder
To forget all that I knew and go recklessly diving
That I’m just the vehicle something else is driving
Without reason, without meaning that I can comprehend
All I can do is acquiesce to the commands it sends
And forever pay tribute to the glory of your eyes
Heaven has a body and it is your size
I never knew a human could hold my hand home
Thank you for the benediction you gave to me alone
As grace flows out from who you are and I the beneficiary
You are the shrine that I worship contemplatively
Struck silent in your presence that is monumentally whole
I am the mirrored counterpart of someone else’s soul
Timelessly I am united here with you
Forever is the intensity of our sacred black and blue
And all the world is striving to achieve and retain
But you’re the man who can’t be moved in the place where I remain