(in solidarity with Kneecap)
Because it can’t be said enough
at Glasto or down the pub
or queuing for the till or for a bus
or in function rooms or waiting rooms
or during the ads at the cinema
or in the back seat of a taxi or cop car;
because it can’t be shouted loud enough
over rotors shattering the air
on a helicopter landing pad or from
the observation deck of a skyscraper
or steel tower or clutching the safety rail
of a suspension bridge and shouting it
out across the river or bay or firth;
because it can’t tear itself
vehemently enough from the throat
and go shrieking out into the world
in the name of pensioners and Palestine
and the vulnerable and unloved;
because it can’t paint itself with enough
gaudy and gory and graphic detail
on the blank canvas of public indifference
or smear with graffiti the billboards
bought and paid for by faceless lobbyists
or project itself into the news broadcasts
editorialised to one-side agendas;
because all the dice are loaded against it,
because the system is rigged to gag
and suppress it, because focus groups
would give up the ghost at the truth of it
and think-tanks be outed as con jobs
because of it, the onus is vital
to keep repeating it, to take up the banner
and march and keep shouting it,
to tear down the flags of the hate priests
and raise up instead the symbols of freedom,
speak truth to the feculent slag-heap of power.