“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke, 18th Century parliamentarian
All that is necessary for evil to rule
Is that good people to do nothing
I’m good people
I do nothing
Not now
I used to do something
I used to fight
I used to believe
I could make a difference
I marched to ban the bomb
I marched for racial harmony
I marched for the Health Service
I marched for the miners
Nothing changed
So then
I did nothing
And evil flourishes
IN PRAISE OF POETS
Everywhere I go, I am blown way by poets
Poets are the conscience of the new millennium
pouring like silver sand through the open fingers of protest
filling the void left by the protest singers of the sixties and seventies
Those singers, perhaps, changed the way
a whole generation viewed the world
they sang to make their point
they used music to make their point
Poets have always tried to change the way we view the world
that is their job
our job
And we, the poets are making a point with our words
We are taking our words out into the world
we are reaching more and more people
we are touching more and more minds
we are spreading the word
and the word is this:
NO!
No matter who you are
No matter what deity you praise
No matter how you live
Your voice can be heard
you have the right
to be heard
And we are all poets
if you can string together two words
you are a poet
But if you can declaim only one word
then let that word be
NO!
NO we wont
NO we don’t
NO more poverty
NO more war
NO more persecution
NO more pollution
NO more destruction
We don’t want to ride this world to devastation
We don’t want to ride this world to annihilation
We want a world for our children
We want a place at natures’ table for our children
We want our children to live in peace
So we say:
Listen to us
We have words
worth speaking
We have words
worth listening to
We don’t have
all the answers
But what we do have are
All
The
Questions
I'M OLD? WHATEVER!
'Been there'
'Done that'
'Read the book'
'Got the tee-shirt'
'Whatever'
Why is it you can’t tell young people anything nowadays?
Oh no, did I just say that?
Did I just say “young people”?
I’M young people
I AM!
Okay, maybe I’m not young people on the outside
But, trust me, I am on the inside
Although, it’s true
I do listen to radio 2
And sometimes radio 4
But that’s not because I’m not young any more
No, really
It’s because Radio 1 got a bit silly
And they sacked my favourite DJ
And then they started to play
All these songs that
I didn’t understand
And one day
I heard myself say
“Call that music!”
When it was said by my Mum
In 1961
I thought ‘Get her, she’s old, what does she know’
And I’m older now than she was then
BUT,
only on the outside.
CHILDREN & WAR
Women do not choose to have children
so that men can send them off to war
That is not the reason we have babies
We hope that our children will grow to build a better world
We hope that each birth brings us closer to peace and unity
Although we know from bitter experience that it doesn’t work that way
Still, we keep trying because we hope that one day you will realise
How futile war is
understand that possessions, in the end, mean nothing
What will it matter that you have the biggest, fastest car
When there will soon be no way of fuelling it
We have within our grasp the means to provide food enough for the world
We have within our grasp the means to improve the lives
of all the people on the planet
They deserve a better future
So ponder this:
While you are busy building new machines to destroy the world
Babies are dying, why don’t you build machines to stop that
Because when all the babies are dead
And woman have stopped trying
Who’s going to fire your guns
Who is going to drop your bombs
Who is going to pick up the pieces
And what’s the point of being the most
Powerful person in the world
If there’s no one left to worship you.
