The door stands open -
across lines, invisible hands are held, golden streamers building in the night.
alone, the possibilities are enormous.
step outside and parasites, deprived of their meat, wait to suck on tiring flesh,
unending statistics that fatten leaders, prisoners of their morality.
afraid of death, we can not save ourselves.
to breathe is not enough.
Yes sir, i will.
When you woke this morning you looked so rocky-eyed,
blue and white normally, but strange ringed like that in black.
it doesn't get much better, your voice can get just ripped up shouting in vain,
maybe someone hears what you say, but you're still on your own at night.
you've got to make such a noise to understand the silence,
screaming like a jackass, ringing ears so you can't hear the silence
even when it's there. like the wind seen from the window,
seeing it but not being touched by it.
*
words sometimes don't seem to mean much;
of anyone we've used more that most.
feelings from the heart that have been distorted and mocked,
thrown around in the spectacle, the grand social circus.
*
up against the rows of grey robots who control our lives
the things we have to offer sometimes seem so frail.
as they plan destruction and gain respectability,
we offer our creativity and are made outcasts.
*
we didn't expect to find ourselves playing this part,
we were concerned with ideas, not rock and roll,
but we can't avoid that arena,
it's become a part of us even if we don't understand it.
*
in attempts to moderate they ask why we don't write love songs.
what is it that we sing then?
our love of life is total, everything we do is an expression of that,
everything that we write is a love song.
*
we look for alternatives,
but the enormous power of the media makes it so difficult
to establish foundations. their lies and distortions are so extreme
that everything becomes poisoned and corrupted.
we can become media personalities, but it is always on their terms.
we're tired of living up to other people's expectations when our own are so much higher.
intelligence seems so easily dismissed when it doesn't conform to mainstream values.
lennon said "they hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool",
he was right. social intelligence merely requires agreement and compromise.
*
the boundaries are becoming narrower as the state becomes more paranoid.
under authoritarian rule, conformity becomes the only security.
fear is a powerful weapon against human development.
cowering in our temples of self there's little chance of change;
the state is aware of that. the bomb serves many functions.
if fear of the omnipotent god is no more,
the nuclear father will govern with his shepherd's crook,
drawing his flock closer to the valley of the shadow of death.
*
those of us who stand out against the status quo
do so against all odds.
we cling so closely together
because we have little other than ourselves.
critics say that it's just punk rock or that we're just naive anarchists.
they hope to discredit us with their labels and definitions.
throughout history societies have condemned those who are later celebrated as heroes,
in so many bourgeois homes van gogh's sunflowers radiate from the walls,
yet he lived in utter misery, condemned by those very same people.
why is it that the kind and gentle are subjected to violence and riducule?
how is it that the small and mealy-minded have gained so much power?
what perversion has taken place that we are governed by fools?
*
we've had problems from self-appointed gods from bishops to mps.
they've tried to ban our records saying that we're a threat to decent society.
fuck them. i hope we are.
what kind of depraved idiot thinks they can silence others by denying them their voice?
for fucks sake, who are these lobotomists?
as if walls only had one side.
whispered intimacies might not get through,
but cries of anguish know no barriers.
but how long do we shout for?
denied the airwaves, we trust in the wind to carry what we say.
but sometimes we've found ourselves shouting into the wind
when we should have been confiding in each other.
it seems so absurd that we are denied the chance of ever being truly free.
the terrible inequalities of the peoples of this earth
make freedom at best a dream, at worst an insulting privilege.
what space is there for self-expression and personal development
when over half the world's population is starving?
there are so many things that might have been done,
but rooted on this spot in the desire to find solution,
there's little to see and feel but the sighing and dying of our world.
but for suffering we might have been a part of it rather than apart from it.
*
making the compromises,
brave fronts, deceitful disguises. what did you know? what did you care?
what did you know? what did you care?
turning a blind eye to the lies just to keep it all together,
but sometimes when i'm alone like this i wonder whether it's worth it.
Smiling and socialising.
endless philosophising. what did you know? what did you care?
what did you know? what did you care?
surface agreements, statements of fact, trying to prove we can do it,
but sometimes when i'm alone like this i wonder just who can see through it.
Bargains and sacrifices.
cheap tricks, cheaper devices. what did you know? what did you care?
what did you know? what did you care?
holding the vision, but losing our sight, endlessly searching solution,
but sometimes when i'm alone like this i wonder how much it's just institution.
What did you know? what did you care?
what did you know? what did you care?
what did you know? what did you care?
what did you know? what did you care?
anarchy's become another word for 'got 10p to spare?' what did you know? what did you care?
another way of saying 'i'm o.k., sod you out there'. what did you know? what did you care?
another token tantrum to cover up the fear. what did you know? what did you care?
another institution, another cross to bear. what did you know? what did you care?
etc. etc.
*
anything and everything can be so easily institutionalised,
a poor parody of itself. itself contained by itself.
there's no point in just mouthing the words.
the token tantrums just aren't enough,
nor is speed and weed and the positive creed.
exclusive clubs where the various tribes congratulate each other for doing fuck all
will achieve nothing but the strengthening of the status quo.
punk has spawned another rock and roll elite,
cheap rotten vicious imitations thinking they'll change their world
with dyed hair and predictable gestures. nouveau wankers.
there's a thousand empty stages waiting for their empty performances,
a thousand empty faces waiting for their empty stances.
how many times must we hear rehashed versions of feeding of the 5000
by jerks whose only fuck off to the system has been one off the wrist?
it's the feeding of the 5 knuckle shuffle.
*
if there was no government, wouldn't there be chaos
everybody running round, setting petrol bombs off?
and if there was no police force, tell me what you'd do
if thirty thousand rioters came running after you?
and who would clean the sewers? who'd mend my television?
wouldn't people lay about without some supervision?
who'd drive the fire engines? who'd fix my video?
if there were no prisons, well, where would robbers go?
And what if i told you to fxxk off?
What if there's no army to stop a big invasion?
who'd clean the bogs and sweep the floors? we'd have all immigration.
who'd pull the pint at the local pub? where'd i get my fags?
who'd empty out my dustbins? would i still get plastic bags?
if there were no hospitals, and no doctors too,
if i'd broken both my legs, where would i run to?
if there's no medication, if there were no nurses,
wouldn't people die a lot? and who would drive the hearses?
And what if i told you to fxxk off?
If there were no butchers shops, what would people eat?
you'd have everybody starving if they didn't get their meat.
if there was no water, what would people drink?
who'd flush away the you-know-what? but of course mine never stink.
what about the children? who'd teach them in the schools?
who'd make the beggers keep in line? learn them all the rules?
who's tell us whitewash windows? when to take down doors?
tell us make a flask of tea and survive the holocaust?
*
the rock and roll swindler says it's o.k. to plunder,
so the pirates set sail to rape any ethnic culture they can plug a mike to.
the imperialists rub their hands in glee
as the slave-boy hunts out butt-ends in the garbage cans.
is it any wonder there was such sickening celebration over the task force
when so called radicals work hand in hand with the ruling elite?
yesterday those wily creeps rejected the status quo,
today they smarm and charm passageways to its very heart.
where's the free individual in all that?
where's the hope and aspiration?
identities have become corporations,
social egos and media moulds,
scholars of ad-man's dreams. prescribed futures;
must we all down aspirins and shine beneath borrowed tans?
are we really so dumb, so cowered into submission
that not only are we prepared to eat shit
we're also prepared to say thanks for the privilege?
why should we accept servility as a bargain for dignity?
why should we passively accept death as a bargain for living?
why accept this robbery of life? why accept this pillage?
for christ's sake take up your bed and walk.
let the blind see end the deaf hear.
the rights of the individual are dependent upon
you realising your right as an individual.
people are so easily deluded into thinking they've instrumented choice
where in reality they're nothing but passive observers.
passive observers do nothing but passively observe,
passively soak up creativity and say "wow, that's me!",
passively soak up destruction and say "oh no, not us, not me".
there are those who strive for value and meaning;
who search for reason and purpose;
their efforts are negated by the passive observers.
*
they spend days before the t.v. set so burned out,
is it any wonder they've lost all sense of vision and possibility?
what chance does anyone have when all the spaces are filled?
sipping breakfast teas to the sound of space invaders.
*
television is today's nuremberg.
bowing to its authority, they become it.
i've seen four year old children conforming to media roles.
main-lining the gross theatre that will become their lives.
the television has so dampened people's anger.
the population is mesmerised by the flickering screen
and the streets, where the politics of reality were once created,
are deserted at night and the rulers sleep secure.
they are under no threat as long as the people are sedated.
those who suffer head-aches from excessive intake of electrons are prescribed valium,
or pay for a fix at the pub where men have to piss up the wall
and the stench of urine lasts well into the next pint.
*
entertainment is designed to gloss over real problems
and very often those who profess dissent only add to the deception.
words are banded about, but always at the whim of the puppeteer.
actionless sloganeering is just another punch and judy show.
*
any information that we receive concerning the real world is carefully controlled,
why else would fiction have such licence?
we are allowed to see endless theatrical deaths,
but when the real deaths started on the falklands
government censors prevented us from seeing them.
we were given the excuse of 'national security'
by the lying shits who were interested only in saving their political skins.
it didn't matter a fuck to them how many died
as long as their popularity ratings didn't suffer,
for that reason alone we were shielded from the truth.
while the real violence is kept from us
we are exposed to constant pantomimes of death and destruction.
those in power are rightly aware that if we had access to the real facts
we would cease to be simply passive observers.
media coverage of viet nam created massive dissent in the u.s.a.
thatcher's government was aware of that when, embarking on the falkland charade,
they refused press cards to anyone who they knew would not support their line.
those who did travel to the falklands found their reports dramatically cut down.
meanwhile, at home, we were fed fabrications of britain's 'glorious war'.
the truth that is now filtering out paints a very different picture.
*
it's often been said that truth is the first casualty of war,
it is, but the same could be said of life.
from birth we are threatened and beaten into submission
by family, church, school and state.
from then on we're easy game for the powermongers.
like pathetic circus dogs we hunt out praise
or, when our true nature finds its way to the surface
we hide in the darkness, our tails between our legs.
at all costs we are prevented from realising our own potential.
we are conditioned into being passive observers.
if the ring-master offers war,
we have been conditioned to passively accept it.
war can only exist through passive acceptance.
it is nothing but a demonstration of the weakness of human will.
*
if the clown offered peace
we will have been conditioned to accept that too,
but peace can not and will not be maintained through passive acceptance.
peace will require constant demonstrations of personal strength,
constant effort, constant hard wor