Since the beginning of democracy,
It has been there.
In the sixties and seventies
We chained ourselves to machines
We protested with slogans –
Make love not war
Ban the bomb
No nukes…
And we grew our hair.
The eighties and nineties came
We shouted it in our music
Punk
Grunge
Techno, and
Rap
We threw away old music conventions
Made it our own and screamed our angst
The two thousands arrived
We whispered
No shouting from rooftops this time
Or from Wall Street windows
Nine eleven.
Terror quietened the murmur
But didn’t stop it.
We spoke softly of it in homes
And workers clubs
And it simmered in our minds
And now the twenty tens
Our phones remind us
Nowhere is free of the murmur.
It’s read by tourists
While sipping cocktails
Served by underpaid indigenous workers
It’s tweeted from exotic locations
Usually only concerned
With cocaine and flesh.
And why is this murmur encouraged?
Because the murmur of dissent
Creates the dissenter
And the dissenter is easily bought.
Once you have enough dissenters
You have the ultimate tool…
Power.
Poetry is my aeroplane 