Gimlet gospel
Peace in persecution
Without the grace
Of good intent
Rank distrust
File suspicion
The habit maker’s
Judgement day
Hostile evangelicals
Turn their face away
This isn’t what Jesus wanted

A bible kept
In a weapons rack
Active shooter
Sporting a crucifix
Judge and jury
Cross themselves
The executioner
moves pious lips
Only the gravedigger
Remembers
This isn’t what Jesus wanted

Violent peace
The loving war
Temples gilded
In stolen gold
Lip service lies
Obscure the stain 
So much blood 
Spilled by willing hands
Unspeakable acts
Justified by faith
…by faith


Weaponised truth
Selfish generosity
Honour wrapped
In virtuous disdain
Indecent morals
Mask shallow deceits
Infinity between 
The word and the act
How is it possible
Not to know
This isn’t what Jesus wanted?

What Jesus Wanted

So Help Me God

Why are we frightened of each other?
Of every difference great and small
Our fear defines us
While it blinds us
To the danger
No artist uses only white paint
In a multicoloured world
What kind of blindness
Refused kindness from a stranger?

Divide and conquer
Promote the lie
Always feel frightened
But don’t question why
Divide and conquer
Rich and poor
Don’t like what you see
Just close the door
Divide and conquer

We claim such thinking is beneath us
That we are passing every test
While we conceal our great contempt
For all the rest
Equal rights are nothing but a fiction
If they don’t turn into a fact
So many hurting
While we are flirting
With the danger

Divide and conquer
Down on one knee
While voting for our downfall
Perverse democracy 
Divide and conquer
Pinned to the floor
Afraid of what you see
Just slam the door
Divide and conquer

We act surprised when things catch fire
While pouring petrol on the flames
A spark is all it takes 
To ignite our mistakes
Yet we feel blameless
Pulling down a statue makes us feel good
And we can always change a name
Token acts that make no difference
While we find someone else to blame
And try to hide our shame

Divide and conquer
Repeat the past
Same mistakes forever
Submission that lasts
Divide and conquer
In Black and White
Hide behind ideas
You know ain’t right
Divide and conquer

Divide and conquer
Living history
If we can’t remember
Condemned is all we’ll be
Divide and conquer
A very civil war
Destroying all our chances
To open up the door
Divide and conquer

Divide And Conquer

You spent your whole life looking for an answer
To a question you can barely form
Sailing with some information missing
While navigating solo through a storm
Looking for a place you can’t remember
One you think you visited before
Talking to the stranger in your mirror
Hoping who you really were was going to walk right through the door

Now is the only moment
Here the only place
Minutes scatter in the wind
Hours flow like wine
Don’t get lost in history
The past is just the passing of our time

A lifetime wanting resolution
Hoping for a journey with an end
Tomorrow is a promise always broken
While today is waiting patiently to be your friend
The past is overtaken by the present
While the future is waiting for your call
The hand already dealt lies on the table
But many cards remain undrawn, and are yet to fall

Not every step will take you forward
But the route is one you have the right to choose
So draw your own map of a lifetime
And make that map the only one you use
You may stumble, fall and think you’re lost
And sometimes you will despair the day
But don’t ask others for directions
When you’re the only one who’ll ever know the way

Now is the only moment…

The Passing Of Our Time

Sometimes we find ourselves in places we really shouldn't be, just waiting to get caught. Inexplicably, sometimes we escape...

Hunched up shoulders, look straight ahead
Shuffle foot by foot up to the barrier
Fumble for a cigarette in certain dread
I wish I could have taken the bus instead
Ten feet…five feet…I'm at the gate
Got to slip through now, 'cos the train won't wait
The platform looks like a runway to me
Escape velocity

Avoid the ticket collector
Stay away from that mean inspector
Watch out for the man with the shiny black peak
I don't want to speak 
To the ticket collector

Leaving the station, what a relief
But this journey could easily come to grief
I'm going to get hungry after a while
I'll try the buffet and a brave smile
I have never seen soup move around that much
Now it's in my lap, 'cos I jumped at the touch
Of a waiter passing along the isle at escape velocity

Avoid the ticket collector...

A stowaway on this sleek express
Undercover agent for a foreign power
The double-oh-seven of commuterland
Quaking in his boots 
before some hard-eyed railroad man
 
I've a right to be here and nothing to fear
From the outstretched hand of this sad little man
Moving through the dream of his dull routine
He thanks me for the ticket...he's never seen
Life is sometimes strange like that
Luck pops up like a rabbit from a hat
I didn't think I could get this far
So take a tip from me
Stick to escape velocity

And avoid the ticket collector
Stay away from that mean inspector
Watch out for the man with the shiny black peak
I don't want to speak...

Ticket Collector

Once in a while the tables are turned on us, with unexpected results:

I once was a ward of the welfare state
Until a dirty trick was played
By those who would contrive my fate
(the ones who always made my cheque come late)
They made me an offer I couldn't refuse
I have been impressed
Into the rank and file of government
Seig Heil!…the DHS*

Now I've seen life from the other side

My first day, I can hardly wait
Though I had a bit of trouble getting out of bed
It's not the though of work I hate
But having to make somebody's cheque come late
So try and imagine my surprise
When I met the other staff
They'd all been drafted just like me
This was the only time we had a laugh

Now I've seen life on the other side

Day four, working the floor
I became the public face
No name, which I thought was a shame
I didn't know you had to stay ahead of the game
I was the subject of appalling abuse
Shat and spat upon
But looking through the glass
I just kept seeing myself
I can't take this for long

Now I've seen life…
 
I got my own back by getting the sack
For trying to give the money away
I was sussed, Quickly bust
And some accusations made I thought were quite unjust
The pay was bad, conditions sad
But I have learned respect
Each paints his picture of the world
So what you see is what you get

Now I've seen life on the other side

* DHS = Department of Health and Social Security, as it was then

The Other Side

Once in a while, we experience something that simply cannot be explained:

A friend told me this story
And he swears that it is true
He said he witnessed this himself,
(although he'd had a little drink)
Driving through the desert night 
He saw a light up in the sky
A light that shone both far and near
The kind of light, that if you blink
Might disappear
With his foot against the floor 
He flashed across the sand
Towards a constellation crashing
On the distant road ahead
And if he could have spoken
This is what he would have said…

Something strange is taking place

His distance to the horizon
Of course, remained the same
So my friend could not be sure
Where his vision touched the earth
He walked a mile and back again
Stopping frequently to listen
To the desert that was hiding a star
But hearing nothing
He returned to his car
He sat awhile, too bemused
To even start the motor
Overcome by feelings 
Long forgotten with his youth
His heart was beating far too fast
The only thought he had

Something strange is taking place

My friend finished his story
And I was glad that he was through
Because a chill ran down my spine
As he looked up from his drink
You see, this was not the man I knew
He was that something strange
Looking at him then I knew he'd changed
It was nothing I could put my finger on
Yet I caught sight of a mystery
A light that could only have come from the sky
Was burning bright in his steady eyes
And that is how I know

Something strange is taking place

Something Strange

It' bad enough being unemployed, but is it really necessary to humiliate us as well?

Every second Thursday
At some unnatural time
I go to take my place
In an unbroken line
Of misplaced machine parts
The waste of industry
The dross of commerce
There we stand
Cogs with no teeth...

And we shuffle about

The end of line
Is drawn on bullet-proof glass
Behind which we watch
Six men drinking tea
And a woman with thin lips
In a lifeless dress
That matches the grey of the walls
And the cabinets 
And her eyes...

As we shuffle about

She punches in the code
Software sighs and dies
She's pulling my strings from behind the glass
And there's laughter in her eyes
So sorry, she intones
There must be some mistake
Why don't you join the queue at the enquiry desk
You won't have long to wait...
And wait…
And wait…
 
Every second Thursday
For the rest of my time
I'm going to claim my place
On this assembly line
Of rusted machine parts
Devoid of industry

…and behind the glass 
in a digital web
sits spider-woman 
giving terminal time
to her living dead
the growing line 
of displaced people
decrepit and worn 
like untended machines
the obsolete heart 
of a decaying colossus
the dance of a derelict 
abandoned, alone
and all you can do 
tossed away like old salad
is adjust your dressing
form a queue...

And shuffle about

Shuffle About

Democracy and freedom are hard-won. If we don't continue to defend our rights, they will be taken from us:

Activate the sensors
Beam the infra-red
Knowing that the signals
Come from in your head
Find the will to stay alive
Don't be bought and sold
A slave remains a slave
Until a slave grows old
A slave grows old

Remote control
Alienation
Break down of verbal
Communication
Do you wonder who's finger
Hovers forever
Waiting to push
Your remote control

Machines were made to serve us
Yet a monster rears its head
Taking from the hand and mouth
Its labour and its bread
Chill, the wind of freedom
A hunger dulled when fed
With bellies full of frozen food
We can chill out to the soaps instead

Remote control...

So dive into a vacuum
Of images in glass
Remotely sensed, remotely felt
A catatonic farce
You got no blood circulating
No experiences read
If you don't take up a challenge
You are as good as dead
As good as dead…

Remote control...

Remote Control

Think Walter Mitty or, bringing it up to date, Steve Coogan; nothing wrong with a daydream, no matter how far-fetched. It's just that this one keeps going wrong:

I need a spark
A little bit of action
A shot in the dark
Or fly me to Cuba
I need some stimulating company
I groove in places where the music is loud
Dance the way that I call free
Talk to women with stiletto eyes
Who hang around with massive guys 
And Danger

Gonna learn karate
Do dirty deals in dark alleys
Maybe I'll join the army
Be a commando
Then I can learn to rob a bank or two
Be council for defence at my trial
Organise a jail-break
Fight a man hand-to-hand
Have the coppers searching for me all over the land
In danger

I'll join the CIA
Double for MI5
With my cyanide pill
They won't take me alive
'cos I'll be living off the land
on safari in Nigeria
T…T…T..tiger hunting in Malay
I can't do this job no more
Gonna quit it right away to look for
Danger

Danger

Still angry after all these years - but not without a sense of humour

Graham Wayne