I’ve somehow always known this feeling And it left me reeling When you told me that I was crazy And it didn’t faze me But I decided to get a second opinion So I fled to the city Let them assess every little bit of me And admit me to Stella Ward It was as though someone crucified the bird That had been singing within me And they try to begin me With a meal of chicken and gruel And I walked into a room, the floor smelt like school I dunno if it was the plastic floor Or the way they paint the exit door But it just reminded me of being three And terrified of what they had in store for me And as the years advanced I learned that I don’t have to dance If I don’t want to But I was always compelled by you To act as the role provides It’s as though I’m not even alive But just a cartoon cutout or a silhouette And somehow I have managed not to forget Just who I am All these years under the plan That aims to rob us of humanity And it did its best to take it from me With pills and booze With the winning and the knowing how to lose Somehow in the middle of the sea I realised it wasn’t for me And that there is another way to live That I could forgive All that had been done In my name by everyone And I just watch on a screen How the children scream And cry over a parent murdered from the sky Unprepared and forced to die To depart the form Now babies clutch bodies no longer warm And the saltwater flows from their eyes While we just say, my, how time flies As we get old and grey And pray That we’ll have a safe departure In Gaza they mourn the martyr Under a mountain of rubble We have known the same trouble On our island It’s on file and Making someone rich somewhere As they wonder do we care About the force of might And like every candlelight The dark departs When it sees what is burning in your heart I see a kind of constant flame Just whisper it when they call your name And as you step to the stage Let love be your kind of rage
There seems to be a prohibition on being who I am They tell me not to speak against the plan Or analyse But everyone dies Why does nobody see And if they do why do they blame me For letting the truth fly And I don’t want to cry But I will If it means I don’t have to kill The beauty inside me For a man who will ride me Sometimes in the dark And leave a mark Like loneliness on the step It is something I can never accept So I throw the papers back in his face As he tells me I’m a living disgrace Because I don’t amount to The stepford wife he’s been pushing through And someday you will bear child But I am ever wild And I have no intention to tame that flame Just to wear someone else’s name And say that I am his I used to ace the quiz But he says I know nothing at all So I make him talk to the wall That is in front of his face Because I do not want to waste Any of my receptivity On who he wishes me to be And I guess it’s handed down Like a shower and a dressing gown The perfect man does not exist It’s all steam and rising mist To dim your eyes And the disguise Was brilliant true But it took like 0.1 seconds to see through And now you bow her branches down But the leaves never touch the ground
That year was a wasteland and I was the bomb
That you dropped from the plane with some aplomb
Just cause your territory had been invaded
And a hole pierced through the veil you masqueraded
And all of the people who lost their lives
Are collateral damage so your city thrives
And I in the moment was eviscerated
My parts to obliterate what you created
And though you are fine and in your warm chair
You lost much more than I did there
To perish what you do not understand
And show the world the wrath of your hand
Then blame it on timing or the way things go
Others may believe you but I know
And hold in my spirit all you tried to destroy
But you’re not a man, no you are just a boy
Who’s playing at games he knows nothing about
If you’re a real king then you don’t have to shout
Or make others suffer for what you cannot spare
I looked for your heart but it wasn’t there
So lay claim to the story and the narrative
History is written by those who cannot forgive
But instead draw lines to denote what they’ve won
But it’s only the living you can kill with a gun
And prove that you are the sun in the sky
But even you too must die
And face your maker or the absence of one
You’ll look for me back but I am done
And never will hesitate the time
I let you go and felt the sublime
As aching powers crave the root
They can never touch the absolute
The Poetry Book 