No history books.
No sorry tales.
No whatever we are told
to allow an argument unfold.
No more this is me an Irishman,
a landed king or queen - it's an old scene,
been here so long the curtain rail has fallen -
Time zones long past the piping post.
Old ghosts walking the planes,
the pains, the terrible hungers, the fires,
old habitual liars scribing delusions confusions
illustrious illusions of, it's like this, it's like that -
Let's put it in our witches pot, boil till it's all forgot,
forgotten - gone rotten in the compost heap.
Shear the sheep.
Let's no more honour those who set up
a war machine of killing that has become accepted.
Release me from the chains of false gold -
sold sold sold and sold.
O no more looking back making
pillars of salt dotting landfills full of rubbish.
O no more looking back.
Sure that's a strange direction to point a finger.
Let's no more linger on the track of stacking
the family silver, broken records so scratched
the melody of screeching is surely a strange sound
to my ears, now clearing of wax.
Old tracks, roads, byways, highways,
where robbers stole a thing or two
and left few pennies in the pot -
Rot rot rot till forgot forgot forgot.
Till the mists of old time
leave no more traces names of races -
black white in-between.
It's an old scene, past tense, money spent.
Heaven scent a new perfume smelling of
something never smelt, seen, known, understood.
Take the hood off the hardened shells,
old hells of fear deceit blame.
Name name name is an old game.
But I shout out. -
No history books.
No sorry tales.
No what ever we were told.
Old old old.
Never again to be looked at.
Packed with this or that fact.
No labels anymore, the store is choking
and we the wise and wistful crones -
women of the no-name ways,
say, what is to be said as the dawn breaks
the lark sings sparrows flap their wings.
Dong dong dong.
Ding ding ding.
Out of horizons valleys highways
sing sing sing -
No looking back.
It's a heavy old sack.
Breaks the back.
No More History Books
September 2010