Freedom’s Thieves

Something of a post-release rant against the establishment conspiracy that deprived me of human dignity for so many, many months. I hope they hear this but they probably will not. They will be too busy stitching someone else up, I guess; an activity which requires much training in order to stay within legal guidelines and which they seem to regard as a legitimate occupation. But, as I imply in the poem, now that I have a public voice, I intend to exercise it. I need to emphasise, however, that this is not about particular individuals. It is about a system which, just as we have seen in recent history where millions of people have been allowed to perish, allows individuals to hide behind statements like ‘I was only doing my job’. That is one of the slippery slopes about which I am trying to warn the public ! It’s quite a complex poem with some religious references as well as references to other poems of mine. And it is meant to be heard rather than read, because of the juxtaposition of the sounds. If you try to read it out aloud yourself you will see what I mean.

Freedom’s Thieves

 

These thieves that find pleasure in freedom taken

Should think well upon what their delights have done

Even fellow travellers were mightily mistaken

By webs weaved of confusion that these spiders have spun

Were they truly convinced of some righteous cause

Or confounded by spurious, temporary applause?

Revenge will earn them less than its cost

For by these very lines, that battle is lost

 

Any wisdom in words laughs longer and louder

Than rattle of chain and jangle of key

Some prisoner prey proves stronger and prouder

Than scrapers and bowers and benders of knee

Doors that banged shut, now wide open stay

Whereby poets pass to find any way

To spread the message far and wide

That, for these thieves, there is no place to hide

 

Their own soul will find them, even perched on a pew

There is no escape from their self-shaped shame

They may ask for help from some chosen few

But must look long in the mirror to find who to blame

The bed is made on which salvation lies

At its last gasp, evil spirit dies

For their cries and creepy, crocodile tears

Will never give back those stolen years

 

Destined to live in a poverty of knowledge

Of the truth and justice which makes man good

And cannot only be learned in school or college

Which by the oppressed, is so well understood

Let them dwell well with Pilate’s conscience

Forced to accept absolution’s absence

Whatever they may think they might have believed

They can never return the freedom they’ve thieved