Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Kit Kelen #640 - a wobbly persistence or you can't blame us / me


640
a wobbly persistence
or
you can’t blame us
you can’t blame me

you can’t blame us
we weren’t the ones
who rounded them up
who dug the graves

that was far away
and that was long ago

they’ll say I knew
but how can that be?

I’d closed my eyes
I’d blocked my ears
I never said a word

yes I know that they’re scarred
and they died like flies
but they can’t have it both ways
can we?

they would say that
yes, I know the accusation

we only live here now
it was an empty place
and it would be without us

I know that they’re ghosts
the ones who are left
what can I do about it now?

you tell me what I could have done
it’s too late anyway

it must have been someone who looks like me

I just happened to be there
I was here all along
I was eking out, I’m poor, I ache
never saw a thing
I was here at home

I never pulled the trigger
I never set them alight

I had never been there before
I don’t have that kind of knife

it was all over in a second

they would say that, wouldn’t they?

may I plead with you your honour
may the court note my remorse

I didn’t bring the walls down on them
I didn’t feed them in the machine

I was distracted by a little bird
I had to feed my family
I was walking the dog

I was too well known to be allowed
I was nobody
they wouldn’t listen

I tried you know

it was all over a crust of bread
storm in a teacup this thing

I only saw it on the screen
it was all news to me

we all have to live somewhere, don’t we?

I hadn’t been drinking that night
I never came to fists with a wife

who’s without sin should cast first
well they’d say that, wouldn’t they?
far far better thing

all of it is relative
this kind of thing

my brother – you must understand
they threatened me, my family

I never believed the crap they put out

I would have taken the poison
but I still held hopes at that stage

never voted for the bastards
I didn’t vote at all

sometimes we have to swallow our pride

I was locked up in a cell at the time

if it hadn’t been them
then it would have been me

I was the head in the sand
was laid up in bed, a good book

of course I see that now

I was coming down with something
I hadn’t taken my meds

I was stone
but I came to life

this is between me and God
it’s my first time in front of you
your worship, yes your majesty
I have a congenital condition

I’m this way because what they did to me

it was all in a language I never knew then

it is true I’ve been watching
but I’m not the one interfered with the child
I deleted all of the images

I was really aghast to learn

I’d closed my eyes
I’d blocked my ears
I never said a word

I was at the piano

I was only conducting

I sang but out of tune
I had my fingers crossed

I was balancing on just the one leg
there’s only so much you can expect of someone

I wish I had been in a better position
I ducked when they opened fire
wouldn’t you?

I sat down because they told me to
they had a gun to my head

put simply, I ran out of time

I had thought it was a holiday
I was saying my prayers

I was on the phone at the time

I still had to finish my poem
somebody else was in charge

yes you could say that they were hacked to pieces
you could put it that way
I know they were innocent now

that bomb just fell from a clear blue sky
what can you do about that?

the very last crimes
are inscribed on my heart
I’m not responsible for them

better to live
to tell the tale

I was playing with myself in a cupboard
that’s a good place to hide, don’t you think?

I was already in the grave when this happened
I have no soul at all

6 comments:

  1. It's the Auden in you, inescapable somehow. 'Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;'. That human discord. You've captured it all, I think.

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  2. I was at the piano, just sticks with me, and the song, what was the song?

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  3. Great power in your poem. The sorrow & the pity, as worn as the cliché is, refers to the response as much as the horrific event. It reminds me of that Niemöller/Brecht thing about coming to take the gypsies, but I wasn't a gypsy...and the someplace wherever embedded in Niemöller's (I think) about coming for me in the morning, they'll be coming for you at night.

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  4. Agree with James - that human discord works brilliantly. The music, the poem, playing with yorself in a cupboard ... while the bomb just fell from that clear blue sky. Brilliant.

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  5. I know they were innocent now
    now I know
    their innocence
    is more than time can ever elapse

    the song must have been
    I won't back down

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