Showing posts with label Sheila MacLeod. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sheila MacLeod. Show all posts

Tuesday 22 December 2015

A Serious Problem With Authority.



       A poem from The Anarchist, by Roland Michel Tremblay, translated by Sheila MacLeod.
 



Ever since I was born you’ve told me what I should do with myself

I’ve never been free to take the slightest little decision

And if I once stood up to tell you I wouldn’t do something

Once just walked away to do something else

That something else soon became your Plan B

I went on doing whatever you wanted me to do

And you wonder why I hate authority

Why I don’t take kindly to criticism

Why I can’t stand people telling me what to do

It’s because you’ve planted these powerful authority figures everywhere

At every level of my existence

Some sort of authority is fencing me in

Checking up on me, spying on what I do

And if I object, however feebly, an army descends on me

An army of parents, teachers, supervisors, directors, priests

Psychologists, policemen, soldiers, agents of all sorts of outfits

What counts is order, conformity’s the thing, total peace without compromise

Well, I’m telling you I’m not the one who has a problem with authority

Too many people have too much authority over everyone else in the world

Don’t be surprised when everything blows up in your face

When someone suddenly pulls a gun and fires it among you at random

You were asking for it and you’ll find it yet