Esto no puede ser no más que una canción
Quisiera fuera una declaración de amor
Romántica sin reparar en formas tales
Que pongan freno a lo que siento ahora a raudales
Te amo – te amo - eternamente te amo
Si me faltaras no voy a morirme
Si he de morir quiero que sea contigo
Mi soledad se siente acompañada
Por eso a veces sé que necesito
Tu mano – tu mano - eternamente tu mano
Cuando te vi sabía que era cierto
Ese temor de hallarme descubierto
Tu me desnudas con siete razones
Me abres el pecho siempre que me colmas
De amores – de amores - eternamente de amores
Si alguna vez me siento derrotado
Renuncio a ver el sol cada mañana
Rezando el credo que me has enseñado
Miro tu cara y digo en la ventana
Yolanda – Yolanda - eternamente Yolanda
Yolanda - eternamente Yolanda
Inamajo Inamajo man is dead man is dead
Inamajo Inamajo man is dead man is dead
Well it's September seventy seven
Port Elizabeth weather fine
And it was business as usual
In police room 619
Oh Biko Biko Biko oh Biko Biko Biko
Inamajo Inamajo man is dead man is dead
Now when I try to sleep at night
I can only dream in red
You know the outside world seems black and white
With just one colour : dead
Oh Biko...
Inamajo...
Now you can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire oh no
Once the flame begins to catch
The wind will fan it higher
Oh Biko...
Inamajo...
Inamajo...
And the eyes of the world they're watching now
they're watching now
watching now
Here's to the Fidel few
Clearing road and landslide
Children of history
Changing from the inside
Non just because Che Guevara showed the way
Not just to shame the C.I.A.
Everyone needs to feel at home
Nobody wins who fights alone
Here's to the N.J.M.
Planning for the future
Women and men who dared raise our aspirations
Not just because Maurice Bishop told them to
Not just to change the western view
Everyone needs to feel at home
Nobody wins who fights alone
And here's to our friends like Chris
working in the classrooms
London to Mozambique
Nursing wounds of empire
Not just because revolution paved the way
Not just to be there on the day
Everyone needs to feel at home
Nobody wins who fights alone
There is a kind of compromise you are master of
Your endless gentle nudging left us polarised
You're proud of being middle class (meaning upper class)
You say you're self sufficient (but you don't dig your own coal)
I think that what you're frightened of more than anything
is knowing you need workers more than they need you
"A herd of independent minds" Chomsky got it right
Joggling into battle waving old school ties
There are degrees of amnesia, ways to forget
Ways to remember all the good that you've done
And if you can't get a witness remind yourselves
Nobody's just perfectly good all the time
And if you killed all those redskins long, long ago
Well, they'd all be dead now anyway, anyway
Don't let that ghost disconcert you (the) lord will provide
(A) nice little headstone for the brave Cherokee
(So let's have) no reservations let's have a clean sweep
Clearing the way for the land of the free
Let's hear it for civilisation once more
Build your aryan empire in peace
Timor
East Timor
Who's your fancy friend, Indonesia?
What did Gillespie do to help you?
They say the working class is dead, we're all consumers now
They say that we have moved ahead - we're all just people now
There's people doing 'frightfully well' there's others on the shelf
But never mind the second kind this is the age of self
They say we need new images to help our movement grow
They say that life is broader based as if we didn't know
While Martin J. and Robert M. play with printer's ink
The workers 'round the world still die for Rio Tinto Zinc
And it seems to me if we forget
Our roots and where we stand
The movement will disintegrate
Like castles built on sand
Beyond the dotted line
Over the border
Out of control
Behind the dotted line
South of the border
Beyond the pale
Going too far
Those foreigner's are at it again
When will they learn to fight like our men
There's nothing new under the mirror
And it's time for one more bedtime story
Get beauty sleep for morning glory
How can I rise if you don't fall?
And as history slips out of view bated breath for the nine
o'clock news
reassembled right before your very eyes: innuendo rumour and lies
Endless fun and games steal a headline, name some names
we're so proud that our press feel so free to manipulate them you and me
And as each campaign begins to absolve us of our sins
I see freedom sold by the yard it's so easy why make it hard?
It's so easy to decide on a name it's a name caller's game
It's so easy to look down from above Helicopter vision
Get the picture when you're outside the frame Retrospective my eye
Call it art and you can say what you like it's a name caller's game
Your perspective describes where I stand Out of line, out of mind
Calling myopia 'focus', of course, makes it easier still
Gharbzadegi means nothing to me Westernitis to you
...We get so out of touch Words take the place of meaning
Poor little Alfie trying to draw
Poor Little Alfie trying to sleep
At least I won't be shot for singing
I'm a free agent - I can protest
This must be freedom
I must be happy!
So let Mandela rot in prison
Someone should tell him how lucky he is
Read him George Orwell, explain Solidarity because
He must understand how he needs us
What with our Culture, our Charm and our Brains
But how could he understand?
(the) heathen got no soul
Is it worth it?
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bycicle on the boy's birthday
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon we'll be shipbuilding
Well I ask you
The boy said Dad they're going to take me to task
But I'll back by Christmas
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people that killed in
The result of the shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
It's just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture postcard
Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyard
And notifying the next of kin once again
It's all we're skilled in
We will be shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls
The Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves, and blood at the roots
Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the 'Gallant South'
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia, sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
...How I wish I could forget those happy yesteryears
They have left a rosary of tears
Your face beams
In my dreams
'spite of all I do
Everything seems to bring memories of you
Tears you've shed today will pause
waiting until tomorrow
Dreams of what could be
Come close to me, timidly
There's a brand new day in sight
At that time: round about midnight
Life's game of chance
And you're one of the minor players
Look for what you lost
For days to come, harbour some
Let your spirit start the fight
At that time : round about midnight
Every day's going to bring some sad times
Every day's going to bring some glad times
So take what you can of the glad times
Don't measure your pleasure
In nickels and dimes
Look back on today and you'll know
When you have been unhappy
Tears done, chased away
What might at night have their day
Let your eyes put out their light
At that time : round about midnight
Round about midnight
Stalin
wasn't stallin'
when he told the beast of Berlin
that they'd never rest contented
till they had driven him from the land
So he called the Yanks and English
and proceeded to extinguish
the Fuhrer and its vermin
this is how it all began
Now, the Devil, he was reading
in the Good Book one day
how that Lord created Adam
to walk the righteous way
and it made the Devil jealous
he turned green up to his horns
and he swore by things unholy
and he made one of his own
So he packed two suitcases
full of greed and misery
and he caught the Midnight Special
going down to Germany
then he mixed his lies and hatred
with fire and brimstone
then the Devil sat upon it
that's how Adolf was born
Now Adolf got the notion
that he was the master race
and he swore he'd bring New Order
and put mankind in its place !
So he set a scheme in motion
and was winning everywhere
until he up and got the notion
for to kick that Russian bear
Stalin wasn't stallin'
when he told the Beast of Berlin
that they'd never rest contented
till they had driven him from the land
So he called the Yanks and English
and proceeded to extinguish
the Fuhrer and its vermin
this is how it all began
Yes he kicked that noble Russian
but it wasn't very long
before Adolf got suspicious
that he had done something wrong
Cause that bear grabbed the Fuhrer
and gave him an awful fright
seventeen months he scrapped the Fuhrer
tooth and claw, day and night
Then that bear smacked the Fuhrer
with a mighty armored paw
and Adolf broke all records
running backwards towards Krakaw
Then Goebbels sent a message
to the people everywhere
that if they couldn't hit the Fuhrer
Go down hit that Russian bear
Stalin wasn't stallin'
when he told the Beast of Berlin
that they'd never rest contented
till they had driven him from the land
So he called the Yanks and English
and proceeded to extinguish
the Fuhrer and its vermin
this is how it all began
Then this bear called on his buddy
the noble fighting Yank
and they sent the Fuhrer running
with their ships and planes and tanks
Now the Fuhrer's having nightmares
cause the Fuhrer knows damn well
that the Devil's done wrote "Welcome"
on his residence in Hell
Orange,
Fierce orange of the egg shaped fireball
Plopping into the ocean
As the earth tips backwards towards night
Orange,
Scratched orange of the gas bottles
Delievered, for lack of pipeline
Dragged to the door by the man in a wig
Orange,
Soft orange of two full moons
One high, one low in a puddle mirror
Floating in a pathole of the unmade road
We could hear it
Before the shutters were open,
The wind on the beach
Then we found
Miniature sand dunes
On the concrete of the balcony
And a dead leaf
Zig zagging,
Scratching an urgent message
In sanskrit
Before hitching a ride
On a frisky gust,
A plastic bag
Caught by a rail
rearing to go,
In such a flap
we see it free
To join a page of last week's news
Racing high
Above the undulating beach,
And the invisible flying sand
Casting a fast moving shadow
Stroking the beach clean.
Yesterday's footprints vanished,
replaced by smooth rippling
Wave formations,
A copy of the sea.
No one walking
Not even the dogs.
A day
For the rubbish to dance.
A white house with a folly
A tower attached.
On the side
A hand painted saint
(Lovingly painted)
Peeps over a high wall
Which surrounds the white house.
His loving gaze
Is interrupted
By a line of broken glass
Cemented
On top of the high wall.
The saint
Lovingly dares
The outsider,
Or the stray cat,
To intrude
And recieve his loving blessing
In loving lacerated
Hands.
Two nuns
On the sea shore
Stand
Apart from one another
Black wood posts
Mesmerised
By the sea god
One nun
With human failings
And weary legs
Sinks to the sand
And sits
like a child
A golden stripe appears
On the western horizon
A signal from the sea god
That he understands
Tiredness
One stounch sister
stays standing
And the sun
Sets
It takes a weekly packet
To keep the shrink in pocket
It costs a pretty penny
Just to stay afloat
It takes a lot of lolly
Trying to be jolly
When the interest keeps mounting
In the bank and in my person
It takes a bit of doing
Just feeling up to scratch
It's work work work
From dawn to dusk
My id is raw
My ego breaking
From months of toil
To separate my real self
From its husk
Everybody loves me
Everyone but me
It's costing cash to melt the ice
I've sweated blood to hear I'm nice
Picture the scene.
"Hello, how are you?"
"Well I'm green and yellow,
Pinky blue."
Dead alternative.
"Oh then, please step right in
To our nursery.
Just pick a group
That you can relate to,
Now the grownups have gone."
After the party is
Over, my friend,
There will be nothing you can
Put your finger on.
Just a parasol.
What we call
Freedom in the north
Means our freedom to
Use you
And if you don't co-operate
We'll cut off your supply lines
But You'll be free
To re-connect
If you beg our forgiveness
You say I
Over simplify
Well yes, so did
Albert Einstein
There simply
Is no middle ground
Pentagon uber alles
There never
Was a middle ground
That's the point I was making
There's no such
Place as middle ground
(That's the point we were making)
Left or Right of the equator
Trouble isn't my middle name,
Left in peace would make my day.
You started the fire not me,
Camouflaged in mystery.
Plundering, murdering,
Raiding coast to coast
Good old days of gore,
And now you tell me
I should learn to deal with you all
Bow to you and praise the Lords for
Everything, everything
You won for us.
After all that was before,
There weren't no amnesty
International,
Nobody to check you.
Don't give me that
'polis'
That 'rule of law'.
Privatise
Next
The air force
Then
The police force
Royal Family
Let them be
Private at least.
Set them free.
Let them go home.
Save a bomb on union flags.
Privatise
The sea.
Privatise
The wind.
Don't just tinker
With unseeded cloud, you got to
Sell
Weather itself.
Set it free.
Don't waste good air,
Breathing isn't paying it's way.
Palestine's a country
Or at least
Used to be.
Felahin, refugee
(Kurdistan similarly)
Need something to
Build on
Rather like
The rest of us.
Palestine's a country
Or at least
Used to be.
Felahin, refugee
(Deportees similarly)
Need something to build on
Rather like the rest of us
Got.
I realised my fists were clenched,
I stretched my fingers to relax.
Still not sleeping, I tried counting sheep.
One by one,
They leapt across the fence
Constructed for them,
Right to left,
Across the fence I bad constructed.
Having jumped,
They refused further direction.
Each sheep, where it landed,
Refusing to exit, remained.
(Certain a vast writhing heap
Growing fast on the left).
Try as I might,
I could not stop them entering
Once again.
Try as they might,
Not one could leave the stage.
I realised my fists were clenched.
I stretched my fingers.
Each sheep were it landed,
Refusing to exit, remained.
(Creating a vast writhing heap
Growing quickly on one side).
Try as they might,
Not one could leave the stage,
Try as I might,
I could not stop them entering,
Once again.
No longer daring to close my eyes,
Still not sleeping.
I realised my goose was cooked
I wondered shipshaped on the shore.
Oh my wife is tall and short,
She won't do what she ought.
She never lies, but then again,
She lies down all day long.
Oh
My wife is fat and thin,
She's generous and mean,
She's ------, and
Her secret's safe with me.
Oh
My wife is old and young
So sweet with her poison tongue
On her evenings off she blackmails toffs,
But her secret's safe with me.
Oh
My wife is tall and short,
She hangs out down the port,
Says "Hello sailor, how's your dad?"
But her secret's safe with me.
Oh
My wife is sour and sweet,
She dit dit dit delete,
She's lalala ladida, butter
Secret's safe with me.
Over an ocean away
Like salmon
Turning back for Nayram
To the delta
With the rivulets tumbling down
Glide over sand
Around the rocks
Back through the wavering weeds
And the turds
In the way
Riversmell
On the route
Along away
Over gravel
The weirs of the tributaries
Against the icy waterflow
To Maryan
Furry kind of greeting, not exactly hostile,
Not exactly facing, not exactly turning away,
Not exactly frowning, not exactly smiling.
Lurking by the door
Without a sign of wanting to move.
Though hardly friendly, not an angry gesture
Did it make. Just quite unnerving.
It's been a long time.
I almost forgot were we buried the hatchet.
"Bin a long time no see", (pidgin English
Native to none). After several silences
A cautious head nod. This could take forever.
Did it want to come for a dig? It did
Not answer. I was feeling restless at the door,
Ashamed of my fears. Where WAS the hatchet?
Suddenly was gone. I woke up
Feeling stupid. No-one else awake
Though dawn was only minutes away.
Quietly I rose to fill the morning pee pot.
What a silly dream,
Not like what really would have occurred.
Old wounds are healing.
Faded scars are painless - just an itch.
We are forgiven.
It's been a long time.
Given free will but within certain limitations,
I cannot will myself to limitless mutations,
I cannot know what I would be if I were not me,
I can only guess me.
So when I say that I know me, how can I know that?
What kind of spider understands arachnophobia?
I have my senses and my sense of having senses.
Do I guide them? Or they me?
The weight of dust exceeds the weight of settled objects.
What can it mean, such gravity without a centre?
Is there freedom to un-be?
Is there freedom from will-to-be?
Sheer momentum makes us act this way or that way.
We just invent or just assume a motivation.
I would disperse, be disconnected. Is this possible?
What are soldiers without a foe?
Be in the air, but not be air, be in the no air.
Be on the loose, neither compacted nor suspended.
Neither born nor left to die.
Had I been free, I could have chosen not to be me.
Demented forces push me madly round a treadmill.
Demented forces push me madly round a treadmill.
Let me off please, I am so tired.
Let me off please, I am so very tired.
Woman wishing for wings,
(Too large a lump to pass for bird),
Hopes that by wishing hard enough
She will cast off the ballast.
And the swallows
Will politely accept her waving arms
As wings,
And she will join in with them,
And she will rise up with them,
And she will
Fly.
I sleep on the wing
Above the rainclouds
Blown by the wind (no roots on earth)
No ground below (no ground below)
Just ruins (timeless)
Dandelion clocks (drifting)
Am I from Venus? (higher, higher)
No ocean bed, no west-wind drift
No desert sand, land or sea
No world below, blown by the wind (limbless) (homeless)
Not human
Lost in longing (lost in longing)
Never belonging (never belonging)
Am I from Venus? (higher, higher, higher)
No roots on earth (I sleep on the wing)
Nowhere I search (above the rainclouds)
No roots on earth (blown by the wind)
No ground below
Timeless (just ruins)
Drifting (dandelion clocks)
Higher, higher, higher, higher
Blown by the wind
above the rainclouds (no roots on earth)
Evening starlight
The night's below (no lights below)
Just ruins (no ocean bed) (rootless)
Dandelion clocks (no west-wind drift) (drifting)
Am I from Venus? (higher, higher) (no desert sand)
A late sparrow fledging
Bathing in dust
Beneath the gaping mouth
Of the post box
(Hungry for letters home)
Pa arrives in the city of the closed doors,
Greeted by miners from Asturias.
His limousine streaks past giant shiny moneyboxes,
Huddled together for warmth.
He is deposited in his inner chamber.
Later, Pa meets the bear, impersonates a tree
To confuse the hell's gates dogs' sense of smell,
And rests for chess with no-one.
Then (amongst the closed doors) he shrinks,
Is dwarfed by rabbits, expands again
To invade the destiny of fourteen mysterious others,
Strangely clad, captured by a camera,
carefully arranged, with a space for his image.
A plot hatched by fate.
Pa looks for diversion in the written word,
Meanwhile, the mundane world seeks solace in illusion.
An imprisoned rainbow gives shelter to the homeless.
A painted machine registers the weight of mystery,
And for background interest a kilometre of women
Queue to kiss a wooden foot, patiently.
The Queen had been.
But no information, in the city of the closed doors,
On Christian Spain.
Elsewhere, bare buttocks wait their turn.
In vain. No guides available. All busy in the Prado,
Followed by shuffling feet. Fascinated. Perhaps.
Outside again in the mundane world,
In the city of the closed doors,
Living men impersonate sleeping saints,
On sundry raised surfaces, (like benches).
Art objects seat beadless (beneath coats).
Performance artists simulate poverty and beg.
A day's begging pays the entrance fee
To the Cinema of Terror. A golden gas mask
Throw the torturers off the trail, amongst
The grazed walls of the city of the closed doors.
Pa escapes,
Samples the delights of raw fish, good wine,
Closes the door of his inner chamber,
Closes the door of his inner chamber, and sleeps.
Roger's in the archive looking up casement
Martha's in the government digging up the basement
Rebel into representative for the voter
Shadow backhencher couldn't get a word in
Turned up anyway ... issues burning
All consuming ... drinks in the cabinet
Spent a lot of time just examining the building
drinks on the house? you must be joking
Corridors of power cuts toy telephone bills
Long time no see underneath the floorboard
Looking for the roots of the family treetops
Toe's in the water but you've only got ten.
Fingers in the eel pie poke around tip top
Tunnelling a wormhole Eartha Kitty catfish
Meadow brown peacock ... pupa-larva-caterpillar
Hibernate in winter of our discotheque no
End in sight .. more like a spiral ... coil
Or curler ... just unwinding ... very slowly
Revealing endless disappearing pipelines
Genuflecting ... bowing deeply ... it
Don't take a weathergirl to see where
The wind is blowing ... what the wind is bending
Isobars are opening ... sex to midnight
Cabinet shuffling homeward bound ... taking
A detour ... rendezvous do ... chapel in the valley
Of the blown up doll ... that's not Martha
Shunting in a siding ... she got homework
Up to here
Roger's in the footnotes up to his elbones
Verse and chapter disinterred
Borrowing a bookcase don't come easy
The weight of the evidence in parenthesis
Beggars tightly furled belief
Heads on blockabeater repetition on the line
Shell shock supertroopers ... whirl banking oil palm
Intercontinental drift ... over the rainbow
Over the sea to ska rocker skintone
hirsuit missed a link and that's not all
That he got missing inna thousand years of
Orthotoxic waste disposal ... god proposal
Jealous sky ... whatever is a girl to do
To break the service in its tried and tested
And found wanting state of oh! boy network
Stewardship?
Little Johnny Aardvark never hurt
Nobody ... Martha friend and Roger too
Tone down a little ... sotto voce ... some tall order
Given that four minutes seems eternity time
In the bushed up world of waspish Vsigns
A-sides sui-C-side salads of the bad young B-sides
What's the point of digging deeper just to lay
The ghost of Sala Hal-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub?
"Don't give up" the dead man cried
"There's more of us than there of you
Soon you'll all be on our side ... forever more or
Lester Young died ... 'Fat Girl' also ... blowing all the blues
Away side ... dust ain't just dust ... trust us like we
Live forever ... broken loose from greystone tether
Keep on tiptoe through the archive ... we are dead
But you are alive ... Martha yes and Roger too
Until you let the gringos grind you down"
