Kit Kelen #640 - a wobbly persistence or you can't blame us / me

640

a wobbly persistence

or

you can’t blame us

you can’t blame me

you can’t blame us

we weren’t the ones

who rounded them up

who dug the graves

that was far away

and that was long ago

they’ll say I knew

but how can that be?

I’d closed my eyes

I’d blocked my ears

I never said a word

yes I know that they’re scarred

and they died like flies

but they can’t have it both ways

can we?

they would say that

yes, I know the accusation

we only live here now

it was an empty place

and it would be without us

I know that they’re ghosts

the ones who are left

what can I do about it now?

you tell me what I could have done

it’s too late anyway

it must have been someone who looks like me

I just happened to be there

I was here all along

I was eking out, I’m poor, I ache

never saw a thing

I was here at home

I never pulled the trigger

I never set them alight

I had never been there before

I don’t have that kind of knife

it was all over in a second

they would say that, wouldn’t they?

may I plead with you your honour

may the court note my remorse

I didn’t bring the walls down on them

I didn’t feed them in the machine

I was distracted by a little bird

I had to feed my family

I was walking the dog

I was too well known to be allowed

I was nobody

they wouldn’t listen

I tried you know

it was all over a crust of bread

storm in a teacup this thing

I only saw it on the screen

it was all news to me

we all have to live somewhere, don’t we?

I hadn’t been drinking that night

I never came to fists with a wife

who’s without sin should cast first

well they’d say that, wouldn’t they?

far far better thing

all of it is relative

this kind of thing

my brother – you must understand

they threatened me, my family

I never believed the crap they put out

I would have taken the poison

but I still held hopes at that stage

never voted for the bastards

I didn’t vote at all

sometimes we have to swallow our pride

I was locked up in a cell at the time

if it hadn’t been them

then it would have been me

I was the head in the sand

was laid up in bed, a good book

of course I see that now

I was coming down with something

I hadn’t taken my meds

I was stone

but I came to life

this is between me and God

it’s my first time in front of you

your worship, yes your majesty

I have a congenital condition

I’m this way because what they did to me

it was all in a language I never knew then

it is true I’ve been watching

but I’m not the one interfered with the child

I deleted all of the images

I was really aghast to learn

I’d closed my eyes

I’d blocked my ears

I never said a word

I was at the piano

I was only conducting

I sang but out of tune

I had my fingers crossed

I was balancing on just the one leg

there’s only so much you can expect of someone

I wish I had been in a better position

I ducked when they opened fire

wouldn’t you?

I sat down because they told me to

they had a gun to my head

put simply, I ran out of time

I had thought it was a holiday

I was saying my prayers

I was on the phone at the time

I still had to finish my poem

somebody else was in charge

yes you could say that they were hacked to pieces

you could put it that way

I know they were innocent now

that bomb just fell from a clear blue sky

what can you do about that?

the very last crimes

are inscribed on my heart

I’m not responsible for them

better to live

to tell the tale

I was playing with myself in a cupboard

that’s a good place to hide, don’t you think?

I was already in the grave when this happened

I have no soul at all