SELF-DEFENCE

            SELF-DEFENCE                                 

In roaring dumps and mourning bars
we all deploy our flags and border guards,
Our words of harsh defence and sly attack -
our ramparts, barracks, gun emplacements - never built to last;
Constructed, drink by drink, against the past.

And later on, as night arrives, our hate grows promiscuous
and unwise,
spilling out in street and carpark
hospital forecourt, local lock-up,
The fear and rage displayed, proclaimed now,
not denied -
or else carried home in fists to quailing wives.

The strong wage war, while weaklings waste
their wages,
Pissing protest up the wall, as we have done
all down the ages,
Spitting freedom down the drain, to wash away
with the falling of the rain at break of day.

And now I'm king here, in the land of the blind,
where the one-eyed man was crucified.
Behind a moat of poison, a wall of empty glass,
I too must build defence against the past.