What Is Freedom?

   To all the the world, seasons greetings from Percy Bysshe Shelley:

XXXVIII
'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many-they are few.

XXXIX.
'What is Freedom?-ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well-
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

XL.
''Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,

XLI.
'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.

XLII.
''Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak,-
They are dying whilst I speak.

XLIII.
''Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;

XLIV.
''Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.

XLV.
'Paper coin-that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.

XLVI.
''Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.

XLVII.
'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you-
Blood is on the grass like dew.

XLVIII.
'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood-and wrong for wrong-
Do not thus when ye are strong.

Excerpt from The Mask of Anarchy.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

I Will Inherit The Earth.

 

A wee message from the inner sanctum of my strange mind.

 Marginalised.

You cannot rob me, I have nothing

You cannot treat me like a dog, you already made me less than a dog

You cannot drive me to the abyss, I am already there

You cannot betray me, more than I have been betrayed

You cannot take my life, I have no life

When I breathe, you will tremble

When I awake, you shall not sleep

When I walk, you will know fear

When I rise, you will fall

I am dangerous, destructible, fearless, I am the marginalised

I will inherit the earth.

And from Percy Bysshe Shelley:

“Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number-
Shake your chains to earth like
dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Ye are many-they are few.”

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Mask Of Anarchy.

      30th. April, last day of the month, last poem of the month, the day before May Day. I'm a great admirer of the poetry of William McIlvanney, I think I have read all he has written and some several times. So, with Labour Day in mind, I thought of this one from his book In Through The Head ISBN 1851581703 published by Mainstream Publishing Edinburgh.

    

Everyman: A Morality Play.

"Aye zur," Everyman said, as the Lord of the Manor

Raped his wife, sons and his daughters, and threw him a tanner.

"Aye zur," Everyman said, "that be bully for ee."

And he pulled up his smock as he bowed from the knee

with a delicate click of obedient clogs

And a tail-wagging movement he borrowed from dogs.

"Aye zur," Everyman said, "that be bully for ee"

"Appen Maister be wantin ma bollocks for tea?" 

With a father from north and a mother from south

He let every cliché find a home in his mouth,

Being taught as a man he would never fit,

He was skilled in the role of an identkit.

He learned his lines well until one fateful day,

Though his mouth still remembered the things he should say,

A slight twinge in one leg made him suddenly see;

"Get A grip. Human beings can't bow from the knee." 

"Ach, fuck this fur a play," every man said,

Took the lord of the manner and stove in his head.

       Since it is the last day of the wee poetry thingy, and tomorrow IS May Day, I thought, just for good measure, I might as well through in a few verses from Shelley's Mask of Anarchy.

The Mask of Anarchy.(extract)

'Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you -

Ye are many - they are few.

'What is Freedom? - ye can tell

That which slavery is, too well -

For its very name has grown

To an echo of your own.

'Tis to work and have such pay

As just keeps life from day to day

In your limbs, as in a cell

For the tyrants' use to dwell,

'So that ye for them are made

Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,

With or without your own will bent

To their defence and nourishment.

'Tis to see your children weak

With their mothers pine and peak,

When the winter winds are bleak, -

They are dying whilst I speak.

ann arky's home.