Collapse Of All

The war takes my breath away 
That people could still think in that way
In terms of human animals and sorting knives by their edge
The sharpness of the thoughts in their head
As they strike their enemy down
But what if their enemy lived in this town
And they decided to blitz it
Because they say that violence fits it
And it deserves decimation
I think of the train station
Where I once met him
And the idea is so grim
That he would be the men in the verse
Where they say women and children first
And I have to leave him on the ship
Or hands behind his back tied with a zip
In a grave at Nasser with nothing to identify
I watch as a mother cry
And scream over the loss
If this is innocence then why do they pay the cost
For a button you press
And guns they fire, you know the rest
I don’t need to elucidate
Because I’ve touched the educate
In Middle Eastern politics
And the lump in my throat still sticks
When I hear the students soar
And demand that the people in charge do more
To prevent what happens to a child
Lost somewhere in a wild
Wild world
Sometimes it’s a blessing to be born a girl

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The Futility And Helplessness

The futility and helplessness sets the kettle to boil 
And I wouldn’t be a daughter of this soil
If the tragedy of conflict didn’t run in my veins
And if I didn’t understand their pains
As they’re bombed into an oblivion
How do I forgive them
For what they don’t know they do
When they are crucifying you
For all they want to gain
Because of the mechanics of their pain
As it spins round and round
And delivers verdict without a sound
Only the deafening quiet of thunder
Another neighbourhood going under
To the sound of crush
And the people rush
To see who they can save
As western civilisation cave
Under the weight of its own oppression
And every truth seems like a confession
We make in the dark
And we scroll past the things that leave a mark
And I watch young men in suits
Brush past the truth
Like it is an inconvenient stare
That they don’t want to admit is there
When they don’t want it to be
And if the Mediterranean Sea
Is the only place you can find solid ground
You know the silence has been lost in sound

Machine Gun Eyes

Dead bodies and machine gun eyes
I think they believe the lies
That they are fed
And when they lie in bed
They must stop the truth from reaching them
And life must be teaching them
How to bear the weight they’ve been gifted
I sweat in my jumper that’s been thrifted
From some nearby store
And I just wanted to change it more
But how do you compete with belief
And you just feel relief
When it falls away from you
It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what to do
What matters is that you’re wiling to be led
Not blind opposition to what’s being said
And I watch Ben Gvir shout his refrain
Does he even know the pain
He’s in and so inflicts
They say that some day wars will be fought with sticks
After we’ve destroyed ourselves
Why do you put them in cells
If they are brother and sister tide
Please leave the Palestinians alive
You’ve done enough
And, God knows, it wasn’t out of love
It was to feed that old demon
That’s always dreaming
He will rule the world
And what does it matter what says this girl
Who is just a child of Irish rain
And our own kind of particular pain
As we live on the land
Our ancestors once couldn’t understand
As it was stolen from beneath them
Until someone bequeath them
Their own patch of ground
And do you hear the sound
Of the child cry
Why must I be the one to let her die?

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The Erosion Of Despair

They come with their tanks and their bombs 
And their hidden intentions
And the last thing they want
Is to be in your mentions
As you call them out
A genocide that you cannot doubt
As they ethnically cleanse
This will not come to an end
Til they have erased the evidence of a people
And the steeple
Is no deterrent to the war
They bomb the mosque and what it’s for
Coz they have a reign
And a plan to occupy again
What they designate as theirs
And the west is like “who fuckin cares”
We’ll just watch over here from our couch
And stay silent as a mouse
In a house of cats
While the baseball bats
Of white phosphorous burns
And history never learns
Not to repeat itself
Be quiet or your mental health
Will take another knock
But they level another block
In the name of fighting terror
Do you think their error
Might be in the lifeless body a mother holds
Like the stories that they’ve told
Of their own past and legacy
Do the brutalised visit their pain on me
When they repeat the cycle
And it is vital
That we all recognise
That whenever anyone dies
At the hand of another
There are no qualifications in that murder
Under the guise of attack as a “sacred” role
The logic of that is pulverise a soul
Til it gives up the fight
And you can sit by the firelight
Warming your hands
And say these are our lands
To conquer and to own
What will be the reflection when the true colour’s shown

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The Desperation Of Sighs

There is the desperation of sighs
As another Palestinian dies
For want of love
Because the world is too far above
Itself to reach down
And bring peace to a town
When someone runs with a gun
Something somehow clasps
Their hands so that thing cannot last
And yet we watch as the ICJ
Won’t wish this genocide away
And people say you’re anti Semetic
If you don’t agree with the rhetoric
That would condemn a people to evisceration
Torture and brutality the equation
That would erase them from this earth
I don’t know if bombs are made to hurt
Or just tear apart
The human heart
We must start
A movement, a revolution
To end apartheid that is brutal
And unforgiving and unfair
I know because I was there
When I watched the flag fall
Don’t hide them behind a brick wall
And say it’s not your plight
Because they’re relying on us, alright?

Lost Causes And St. Jude

South Africa’s leading the charge
And we are all floating on a barge
Down the river Thames
Watching it happen again
And over one hundred and fifty years ago
The Irish were starved to death so
The British could maintain their economy
The invisible hand and the maize crop they take away from me
So how do I not feel Palestine
As though the struggle was mine
Babies screaming in the street
As the winter steals the heat
And Israel bombs the buildings
Do they not care for the children
Who will grow up with war wounds
Or the ones who died too soon
The mothers, fathers, family, friends
Is this how the world ends
Watching silently from the western front
As a people bear the brunt
Of what’s held in the unconscious
And I don’t know what they want us
To do in the movement in between
When they convince the dream
That it is reality
But the lie is not getting the best of me

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