If we could start from scratch build it all again
Would we make it the same or different?
Would we create a world, a society
That destroys our home to sate corporate greed?

Where bureaucrats say, “My hands are tied.
Just doing my job,” as they destroy lives.
Where rulers are seen as necessary,
and freedom secondary.

Or would we find a place,
Create a space,
Where everyone
Could be?

All power to the imagination.
Revolution without a revolution.
All power to the imagination.
Revolution without a revolution.

If we just stepped back stopped taking part,
Stopped supporting this system we could break apart.
Just be together, organise
A way to live where we could control our lives.

Where labour could be a thing of love.
Not something forced on us from above.
A gift to our community.
Statement of solidarity.

And we could live,
Not just exist. 
Trust in trust.
No fear.

All power to the imagination.
Revolution without a revolution.
All power to the imagination.
Revolution without a revolution.

You cannot ever step in the same river twice.
Change is unavoidable a crucial part of life.
We’ve never had a revolution just a change of the guards,
A transfer of power, a shuffling of the cards.
We don’t need different kings we need a different deck.
We’ll never get there standing on each others necks.

All power to the imagination. 			
You cannot ever step in the same river twice.
Change is unavoidable a crucial part of life.	
Revolution without a revolution.  		
We’ve never had a revolution just a change of the 							guards,
A transfer of power, a shuffling of the cards.	
All power to the imagination.			
You have to be the change you want to see in the 							world.
Create a new society in the shell of the old.
Revolution without a revolution.		
Creativity can be our resistance.
We don’t need guns or violence.

All Power to the Imagination

Expats, Migrants, Refugees - Lyrics

Did your company relocate?
Were you compensated to emigrate?
Did you move for love?
Perhaps you just wanted to see the world?

Did you have a nice trip? 
Did your company pay to move all your shit?
I hope your journey went ok.
No customs, traffic or long delays.

Or did you cross the sea on a rubber boat?
Overcrowded, leaking, just afloat.
Did you hide on the wheels of an aeroplane?
Or in a cargo ship almost suffocate?

Did you walk 500 miles? 
	Across the Sahara desert
Trade your organs and your blood for a better life.
	To rot in a detention centre.
Were you caught in the wrath of a hurricane?
	How the fuck did you keep going?
To land in this place where you have no name.

A global North South, West East divide,
For different people different rights,
Expats, migrants, refugees
Same motives different race or creed.
This international caste system makes us think that there’s an us and them.
We’re lost between our walls.

For centuries we bled the third world dry.
Through debt they’re still colonised, we own their mines.
Won’t even allow them to dream to hope to aspire.

In the West we’ve Stockholm Syndrome.
Don’t see these walls as prisons but as homes.
Institutionalised we fear what’s on the outside.

Borders exist only in inequality.
They’re found within countries, cities, families.
Wherever there’s privilege or power there’ll always be borders.

Expats, Migrants And Refugees

Home is Where the Heart is:

If no one sees me how can I be sure that I really exist?
Are we so different? You beg too. Your house does not belong to you.

I understand why you ignore me.
But why are you so angry with me?

Am I in your way?
Do I take too much space?
Surely not as much as you,
And your house with two guest rooms.

I’m sorry if by seeing me I’ve ruined your night.
But all you seem to want to do is get drunk and fight.
I’m sober now.
For fifteen years.

You look at me like something you would wipe off your shoe.
Guess it makes you feel powerful when you give me abuse.
I still love you all.
And all your flaws.

I’ve retained my dignity.
Can you say the same thing to me?

Have you done all you can?
To help your fellow man?
Or thought of just yourself?
And your material wealth.

We lost ourselves in notions of success and property.
The people of the city I knew would stand beside you against the monolith.

We sold our substance.

When they took our homes,
They also from you stole.
Your city’s heart and soul.
And now we are all alone.   

And when they come for you,
We won’t forget the golden rule.
That unto others you must do,
So on the streets we’ll make some room.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

The Sound and The Fury 
- Lyrics by Dermot Kelly & William Faulkner

Shattered glass
Broken shards
Refracts the light into different parts.

No need to worry
No need to cry
Everything here is fine

Broken homes
Broken souls
“Broken flower”
“Walking in shadow”

Enjoy the present 
It’s all we have
And we’re the only ones who can. 

  “No battle is ever won
Victory’s an illusion”
“Out brief candle to death dusty
The Sound and The Fury.”

Crystal balls and pigs entrails
Ouija boards and soothsayers
Superstition’s all we need
To ignore The Sound and Fury.

Idiots
Can’t intervene
Castrated by authority

No values 
No morality
Nothing at all but absurdity

No option
But suicide
“Only way to stop time”

“No battle is ever won
Victory’s an illusion”
“Out brief candle to death dusty
The Sound and The Fury.”

“Philosophers and fools all talked at once”
“Insistent and contradictory 
making unreal’ty to possibility, 
then probability, 
and then into a fact”

“Amid the pointing and the horror the clean flame 
a stalemate
of dust and desire 
I couldn’t smell trees anymore”
“and I started to cry”
 “I tried to keep   
from falling
off the hill 
and I fell 
off the hill 
into the bright whirling shapes”

“I tried to cry but when I breathed in
I couldn’t breathe out again to cry”
“I saw the first and the last I saw the beginning and the end”
“The grave hopeless sound 
of all voiceless misery under the sound 
I was trying to say”

“It’s not when you realise
Nothing can help you, not religion, not pride 
(or anything)
It is when you realise”
That you can withstand any pain.

The Sound And The Fury

Home. Music by Dermot Kelly. Lyrics by Warsan Shire

No one leaves home unless it’s the mouth of a shark,
You only leave when home won’t let you stay.
You only run for the border when the whole city runs too,
Your neighbours running faster than you.

The boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy
Holding a gun bigger than his body.
Waiting ‘till the airport to swallow your passport
Choking on the fact you’ll never go back.

Understand no one puts their kids in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.
Understand no one puts their kids in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.
Understand no one puts their kids in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.
Understand no one puts their kids in a boat unless the land is the mouth of a shark.

No one chooses refugee camps or prison unless
Prison’s safer than a city of fire.
And one prison guard in the night is better than
A truckload of men who look like your father.

No one could take it no one could stomach it
Nobody’s skin would be tough enough.
To crawl through the desert, wade through the oceans
Drown, save, be hungry, beg, forget pride.

Understand no one puts their kids in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.
Understand no one puts their kids in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.
Understand no one puts their kids in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.
Understand no one puts their kids in a boat unless the land is the mouth of a shark.

The go home blacks, 
The refugees, 
Dirty immigrants, 
Asylum seekers.
Niggers with their hands out
They smell strange
Savages
Messed up their country now they’ll mess up ours.

Are these words more tender than fourteen men between your legs?
The insults easier to swallow than bone?
Strip searches where your body is left aching.
I want to go home.

But home is the mouth of a shark the barrel of a gun,
No one would leave home.
Unless home chased you to the shore said quicken your legs
Leave your clothes behind.

No one leaves until home is a sweaty voice saying leave run away from me now.
No one leaves until home is a sweaty voice saying leave run away from me now.
No one leaves until home is a sweaty voice saying leave run away from me now.
I don’t know what I’ve become but I know that anywhere is safer than here.

Home

Requiem for Anarchy. Lyrics by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822). Music by Dermot Kelly & Gabriel Faure (1845 - 1924).

‘What is Freedom?—ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well—
’Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day

In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants’ use to dwell,
‘So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,

‘’Tis to have your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment
‘’Tis to see your children weak
They are dying whilst I speak.

‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew       
We are many—they are few.

‘What art thou, Freedom ? O ! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
‘Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude—

Spirit, patience, gentleness
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou - let deeds not words express
Thine exceeding loveliness

‘Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps ; they make the lot
‘Thou art Love ‘Thou art Justice
‘Thou art Wisdom ‘Thou art Peace

‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth like dew
We are many—they are few.


‘Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as Nature has made ye, free.

Requiem For Anarchy

Afraid of our own Shadows Lyrics

When the fear takes hold and we’re locked in our homes, of our friends and neighbours terrified.
Well who are the ones who are taking our freedoms, with robot policemen on the streets.

We could all be free, from religion, nation, wealth and gender.
Freedom has a price. Your privileged lives you must sacrifice.

It’s a call for revolution.
It’s a call for taking action
It’s a call for freedom from the tyranny of fear,
That separates her from him and him from me.

The nation state just exists to separate, promoting tensions bating race.
And our refugees, their relentless bravery has held a mirror to our face.

Desp’rate and powerless ‘cos all we have, are trickle down trinkets from our masters.
This humiliation lets our darker sides, like fear and hate rise from within us.

It’s a call for revolution.
It’s a call for taking  action.
It’s a call for freedom from the tyranny of fear,
That separates her from him and him from me.

Hold on. We’re here.
We’ll fight all hatred with love without fear.
It’s time to stop,
Letting fear of death making us scared of life.
Terror controls us .
And you can’t wage war on an emotion.

‘Cos it’s not them we’re scared of.
It’s the fact it’s within all of us.
We project our fears and we withhold our love.
‘Cos we’re really afraid of our own shadows.

Afraid of our own Shadows

Dear...whatever,

Another light goes out,
Another flower trampled on.
Yes, I know how this looks.
I'd do it too, if I were you.

I know excuses are easy. 
Just words, and words are meaningless.
But we were terrified,
Of showing our softer side.

When all we really needed,
Was to feel someone.
But all we thought we wanted,
Was to be someone.
We didn't know we could just be,
We never learned to read your signs.

I know the others won't be sad,
To finally see the back of us.
But I know you must be mad.
What a waste,
What a shame.

If we could just have more time,
I know, we get it now.
It's not ours, it never was.
Just renters with outstanding debts.

We'll be different this time,
We'll cherish it.
We'll look for true love.
We'll compromise.
We won't abuse our privileges,
We'll take them seriously.

Because we know the truth now,
It gives us hope.
We've lost our egos.
We're one nation.
Freedom and equality,
are meaningless,
if not for everyone.

Dear...Whatever

"Boxes"

I wish I never was a male
With all those expectations.
To be so tough and confident.
Convinced that sex contains violence.

I wish I never was female
And all those roles I had to take.
Subservient but always strong.
Convinced that sex is so very wrong.

Don't feel, don't cry, conquer, destroy.
Fight, exploit.
That's your right.

Stay at home and love the child.
Sacrifice.
That's your plight. 

I wish that I was not born gay.
Why does my love inspire such hate?
Never sure how I should act.
I’m never free to just be me.

I wish that I was not born me.
Born a she but told I'm he.
They're so concerned with who I am.
Their anger I can't understand.

Your individuality.
Is a threat,
To society.

You're a cancer to the system
an assault on our traditions.
Your existence is a fallacy
Your acceptance leads to anarchy.

I could live a lonely life.
Away from all of you.
Of course I’d miss you to be sure.
But I can’t take your judgements anymore.

The thought that I am not worthy.
The feeling that I’m not who I should be.
If I ever let you down.
I’m sorry.

Home

dermot

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