big man

Riding Rough Roads to the centre and back again
With the questions hanging
Is this what revolution was fought for?
What a whole people went to war for?
To fracture, to split, to self-destruct, kill, mutilate, torture?
Allowing vengeance and hate to tear apart the fabric of this community
What do flags and uniforms mean to the dead, exiled or hungry?
Can empty words clothe them?
Can bullets feed them?
And if they perish will they come when you need them?
Exploitation, indoctrination and division might elevate positions
But when you ascend, no longer to pretend, but holding the throne
What will you rule?
A sea of blood and you all alone
With your illusions to comfort you…your medals and stripes, your crucifix
The willing deception of visitors, of adulation shown, at veiled gunpoint
The perception of privilege, of rank, of tone, left redundant
Except in your vicinity, bigger man fed off the tribute of forced loyalty
Sustained by the myth of liberation from slavery
But now you’re the master, and you keep trading, shifting, hiding, now parading
To maintain prominence, brutal dominance standing proud on foundations of fear
But fear is soluble and when the tides of unity wash again
Fear will dilute and transform
And you’ll find yourself leading an imaginary convoy to the rivers edge searching for the safety so long suppressed
And now reconstituted, distributed, far from your solitude
Now with your finery torn and sodden, corruption exposed
Can you look the people who used to call you their own, in the eye, and ask for forgiveness?