"Not In So Many Words A Manifesto"

[hawkwing_lb]

"Not In So Many Words A Manifesto"

Have you heard the voices on the radio?
Have you seen the Sunday headlines?
They say tomorrow will be worse than today
They say the golden age is dead.

So heave, boys, and haul away
cut another hole in your belt and buckle tight
leave your dreams and book your flights
for China and America, London and Bombay
for freedom and choices have all gone far away.
The rich have all your money in their shiny fashion bags
And they're not sharing with your tattered rags.

Cut another hole in your belt and buckle tight:
that old record playing late into the night
tired and scratched and broken and sore
and we can repeat it all, word for word,
because we've heard every line a thousand times before:
Be grateful for what you have.
Don't ever dare to ask for more.

So heave, girls, and haul away
(sell your souls forget your dreams default your lease)
The world won't let you speak, or give you peace -
and in the end you'll go a bridge too high, a pill too far
dying in quiet desperation at midnight on your bathroom floor.
Because speaking Truth to Power only keeps the lights on
inside your aching head. And the golden age is dead.

Sell your souls. Forget your dreams - The politicians sigh,
We're all in this together, and you know it for a lie
tired and stupid and ancient and sore
but we can all repeat it, every line:
we've heard it word for word so many times before:
Be grateful for what you have.
Don't ever dare to ask for more.

What I have is a belly full of rage
and fire, and spite: I refuse
to be caged by Capital and the nonsense
theories of an age where no god lives but Mammon,
no virtue but avarice. Workers, unite!
The Invisible Hand is giving you the finger:
It's not going to ever make nice.

What I'm asking for is empathy, reason, common sense:
it's not treason to acknowledge
humanity in poverty, justice in anger,
the future in an open hand.
I'm not a company woman: I won't chant your refrain.
I want a future free from chains, from too big to fail;
free from desperate towns in a haunted, frightened land

What I have is a belly full of rage.
What I have is a stomach full of dread,
and it's too late to turn away
and it's too late to pretend
that our day is coming, our hour -
The golden age has always been dead
and speaking truth to power
won't keep the lights on. Not even in your head.

---

Yes, I'm a bad poet. And yes, I'm a socialist.

I believe that a government has a moral duty to guard the best interests of all their citizens. I believe that moral duty includes a duty of care which begins with the most vulnerable: the poor, the very young, the very old, the disabled, the discriminated-against. I believe that the vast majority of governments are consistently and willfully negligent in this duty.

I believe that a more just society is possible. I believe the path to achieving a more just society is to stop valourising capital, to refrain from using GDP as a measurement of a society's success, and to reinstute public liturgies for persons of significant private wealth.

That would make a fine start.

Normally I post my poems under f-lock, but right now? I'm an angry socialist. And, dammit, I want to be heard.

(I am not resigned.)

Comments

[jennygadget.livejournal.com]

I think I will have to be printing this out and taping it on the wall. Several, perhaps, if that's ok.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

As long as you stick my name on it somewhere, that's what it's there for. :)