I watch the images of bombed out bars And burnt out cars On city streets And I know that the heat Is born from a fervour deep and true I feel it in me and I see it in you And somehow peace has found a way To hold and that’s the order of the day It’s been 800 years And so many women have cried tears Over lost sons And I could be the one To finally unpeel The way they made our nation feel As they circumscribe the land And say this must be tilled by hand And no more than so many yards I don’t even know how hard It must have been And my dream Has been rocked Like the walls made up by people locked In Connemara by the rule of the day To hell or to Connaught, isn’t that the way And we can bark orders and we can make decrees But that Ireland isn’t me It’s something other It’s living and breathing for your brother And dying with hands crushed together Nowadays we just complain about the weather But the sadness is embedded in the roots Of the great tree that began as shoots From the fertile soil I feel my blood boil When someone talks about English rule The things they taught us in school About how to bend and break And why they did it for our sake And we must be respectful, too Because they are human just like you Then someone utters a word And just like that the bird Of hatred is born Because the fire of fear is still warm And glowing embers Not everyone knows but the heart remembers Even when the mind forgets And it’s not over yet Not till the trauma storm Has made the people realise they warm Their hands on the coals of the past And in some ways people are classed In the stratosphere I feel the time near When we must stand up and be counted Oh, what has it amounted To but this Heaven is in the first kiss
Half of the town is missing in Bermuda You could search for a reason but it would elude ya Why the history of partition and pain Became as common in Ireland as rain And I fight to hold my rebel spirit Under control so that no one might hear it Because I have the heart of the Gael And my soul is not up for sale And my blood used to boil When I would read history about our sweat and toil Under the rule Of the English that we learned in school Had us under the thumb And they would kill anyone who would not succumb To the heavy weight of oppression And it is my confession That some part of me bears generational hate For all of the acts that left us in that state The people I would love to be kin To if they hadn’t died of the sin Of merely ceasing to exist As the loyal service of a crown that I missed When they educate You to clean your dinner plate Or you will die If you do not want to lie Then stand up and be counted As the people who stood up and shouted Against the lashing of hail And the plantation fail To convert an adequate number Now I see Palestine and their hunger As they have no bread Because they are controlled by land, sea and air instead Of the freshness of home Do we as a tribe leave them alone To face the mountain of world Built on the conquering of the girl In the soul of us all Someone wants to build a brick wall To keep the Mexicans out But I don’t trust a word out of his mouth Because the land is free And it does not belong to me But I to it The Native American’s in the place where I sit At the altar of pride It is not okay that I hide When I have the privilege to say The conquering is not okay When you consider the truth The civilised nations to play the brute And inflict Themselves on a future I would rather quit In the innocent stain I can see it happening again As the world turn But will the world burn If we do nothing to stall The advance of the darkness that answers the call Of the nomad or thief I look to the sky and its blessed relief Just to know That there is a space that will not let go And though they fly through the air And I have been there I can’t set a flag On a cloud so that I can brag That I now own it I used to resent but I have grown it Into simmering wisdom I watch the auspices of power and the Great Schism Split us into a prism of light That we are all one is the message of life And bear no hate for your enemy Coz you walk in his shoes and you discover you’re free To love enough not to be pulled low Enough to wish him to die slow In the mists of time If I could forgive would that be a crime For the sake of pure love And all of the Gaelic in the place where I stood My ground in this sacred place If you don’t know you can read it in my face
To be Irish and free Is this a part of our history That we could call a break with the past Coz it’s been nigh on 1000 years since the last Time empire didn’t darken our door And I couldn’t wish for anything more Than the heart that beats in my chest For the rest Of the world that still labours under The sound of that thunder As it quakes ground With artillery or the sound Of the machinery of the day Because they want to take away All that we have come to know But Love does not let us go In spite of all the trouble And it is no bubble That we just fell into It is the heritage we were born to Embody And already I can see the dawn When the tendrils have withdrawn From their occupation of lands And the dust and the sands Yield no harvest But I divest Myself of the poverty And say all beings should be free Of the mighty weight of bowing down And the water will not drown It will only nourish and refill What the darkness tried to kill And it’s not a personal sin It is just a deviation from Him And the persecution dies As the whole world tries To shift the narrative And it is imperative That we do not tolerate What we’ve come to know as hate As it darkens the door That has come to shatter on the floor But the light just pours through And it’s from within me and you There is no us and them There’s just a mistake we can’t make again
Are our memories so short that we could call this history And the mystery Of the Emerald Isle Is how we survived the trial Of invasion And the abrasion Still shows in galactic consciousness As we struggle to address The appropriate evil to compensate For why we were in that state It seemed like there was nothing we could do Except rebel, rebel But it was a kind of hell As they starved the land of its people And we replaced futility with a steeple And prayed to a God we knew not of Because only Divine Love Could be our salvation As we were collateral damage for a nation Who’s only goal was empire And I wonder they never tire Of the chains they induce And they seduce The whole world with their lies And now it tries To deceive again Because in the realm of men Killing and war are necessary But children are not an accessory To the damage you do Yes, I am talking to you You equivocate And evaluate What you do by some measure But your treasure Is not to be found in the blood of the young Or a people to succumb To what you want to achieve I know you believe In what you say But I see another way To mend the broken wall Try letting the damn thing fall
The Poetry Book 