29/07/2024
Heritage
I. Castles
Castles gallows forts and chapels
Churches towering songs of glory
Palaces and stately homes,
Fields of bones and sites of battles
Celebrate genocide; the murdering of generations,
The hedgerows and the country lanes
And,
Through the trees,
The crenelations,
Like shackles on the hillside
High on heritage and bu****it
And the twisted lies
Of history.
Damn the tall tales twisting misty
Down the dark and hilly hollows
Where the bitter moonshine
That the proud fool has to swallow
To wash away the taste of shame
And call it pride
Flows in streams of
Broken dreams from barrels
Labelled
Mad, Bad, Foolish, Furious and Starry Eyed
Fills guts with fire
Together in the gathering
To rage as
Bold as heroes in the night,
Holding one another
in each other's arms and sing
“Our day will come when nobody
Will ever have to live like this!”
And every morning
Turns that spring of hope
Into a stream of p**s.
We celebrate brutality,
Preserve it for posterity
As heritage and history.
We let it flood our landscapes in it's blinding light
So that future generations
May see their exploitation
As inevitable, perpetual, and right.
II. Greenwich
Idling in neutral on the gravel of the carparks
Entrusted to the nation,
Looking for spaces and coins
For the ticket machine,
Money and time, nature and power
Combine all around in a
Tidy harmonious whole.
Set the alarm on your phone;
We can only park here for an hour
Lady Emma Hamilton dazzles
From banners of pavilions
Looks down,
Red lipped,
Flags flying
Flapping
In the thin meridian mist
Over international guide lines,
Young minds
Penned in
Resident only spaces
Unauthorised use £200 fine.
Take the next left past
Celebrity s*x and death on the A206
Telling the story,
The only story,
Nation and glory
Holding the line
Cruising past colonades:
Sermons in stones,
Lessons in bricks
Fame,
Power,
Manpower,
Slave powered state power,
Cocking around all over the world.
Now,
Setting the scene
We are here to be told what all of it means
It's Greenwich
Tea time. They come in queues.
In back packs, rain macs,
Badges and practical shoes
Young and old, students
Compliant and silent in lines
Constantly counted, families
Gathered in piglets and pearls
And all with open hearts and open minds
From every corner of the cash converted world
Keen to learn,
Humble students,
Humble as we all should be
If our lessons weren't to learn to love the lies of tyranny.
Repeat after me,
Wherever you live
There
Is
No
Alternative
III. Blood
Now I, as I grow old and bold
And my blood boils warmer
And my heart grows cold to
The infantile attraction of
Nostalgia and tradition that
Deluded me when I was young
All I see in your painted ceilings
And your pillars and your statues is
What
The f**k have we done?
What the f**k
Have we
Done?
As I stand here on my feet
Breathing the love of you
And all
All of us here in this room, me, as a man, husband, father.
Here at older middle age, no s**t, no shame,
Only rage and blame and a sense of
Responsibility.
Me,
If I had the hands
If I had the power
I would take every stone of every fort,
Every palace,
Every prison,
Every border wall
Every castle,
Every court,
Windsor and the Tower of London
In particular of course
But all of them.
Each and every one of them.
I should grind their stones to dust.
Leave no trace.
Leave their shackles and their chains to rust.
They have nothing left to teach us.
They have taught us all we know
And all we know
Is all they taught.
IV. Love
I am sorry.
That is enough now.
No more angry empty pompous words about hate
For, despite the genocide,
The slavery and the patriarchal state
We have
Always always always
Almost always found the time
For singing
Dancing laughter
And falling in love again and again
With the sun on my fat shiny tummy I am happy
You are smiling and I will live
Forever
By your side
In your arms and you in mine
You love me like a brother
And you chose me
When you chose to be a bride
We sometimes spit sharp flecks and bridle with pride
Before, laughing at our foolishness,
We fix our hurts with kisses,
Dancing careful while our
Mud dappled milk lipped babies
Sleep and snore
Like kittens with their cousins in the kitchen
And no mothers milk
Is ever took for gore.
We never needed to be perfect
But this is who we are
And all we ought to be
No less, no more.
V. Hearts
Castles, palaces and forts cast shadows
Lying, long and dark across the surface of our world.
Their echoes, running deep down through the years,
Fracture our whole,
Divide each of us from one another
And even split us
From our own selves apart,
But who we really are and everything our world can be
Is always here in you, in me
Always here;
A new world in our hearts.
