BEHIND THE POEM
I wrote this poem one morning sitting on the 46a heading into town. I was listening to Kojaques song White Noise and the words were just really being absorbed that morning. It’s a song about class struggle, about books being read by covers, about distance, about us and them, about pain. I remember just pausing at the end of the song and took out my phone and started writing. The poem just came out in one sitting. I remember feeling such anger and disappointment as lines went down that this was reality. Such frustration that our societies still create these feelings of displacement and separation, these labels and fables that push us apart. But I wanted to ask why. I wanted to challenge the thought of who creates this. Who stands to benefit from it. Who’s been driving the wedge between the people of Ireland for so long and why do we continue to let them away with it and just blame each other or blame the people who come here for a chance of a better tomorrow.
It can be hard to see the wood for the trees sometimes, but for me that’s what art allows. It was I enjoy capturing in my poetry. An opportunity born of my own desire for an answer or change. I write first and foremost for myself, as my means of processing things and getting my feelings out into ways I can look at them and understand them better. This poem was no different. It was me putting down the words of my anger and frustration into sentences to take them out of my body and then look upon as an opportunity to challenge, learn and change.
That’s all I would ever hope for this poem, that it reach people wanting to challenge or change the things that push us apart.
Standing
What are we waiting for
Who are we standing next to
What are we standing up for
Who are we standing up to
Why do we let things happen
Let some people get away with murder
If they’re the ones in the suits and polished beamers
They get to piss all over the prospects of the dreamers
The ones that had to claw to get a seat up at the table
The ones who probably built the table until their bodies just weren’t able
The ones who talk a little different so you think they’re dangerous
Call them junkies, call them knackers, make it them and us
But then put trust in the real gangsters wearing 3 pieces
Who Stand on podiums clutching tri colours so you’ll believe them
But they’re the ones who once told you who you couldn’t love here
Told your mothers told your sisters you can’t do that here
Made people scared to be different or call themselves queer
Helped to propagate the hate against those who had live in fear
But year on year we stand and take hit after hit
We Fiana Gael or Fiana Fail for the same old bullshit
We accept what suits us from the suits accepting handouts
Then try not make eye contact with the people freezing with their hands out
How do we keep falling for oldest trick in the book
To be convinced our enemies are the ones beside us chasing the same hook
The ones on top who have it all create the dogma
Then we subscribe and fight like dogs for scraps until its over
What does it take to break the pattern, break the cycle
Get back the freedoms fought for by Eamon, Constance, Michael
We are the sum of all our parts when we’re together
So ask yourself what really divides the people living on a tether
What are we waiting for
Who are we standing next to
What are we standing up for
Who are we standing up to
Seán Watmore | Poet | Ireland.
