We Do Not Forget

Stop this war And I want to say Something else Specific to you Mr President All of us Who are weak We watch you And we learn From your hatred And we do not forget And we are many Mr President We are most of the people On this Godforsaken planet Stop this war This killer crusade This conversion Of a stranger's land Into a killing field This homicidal rhetoric That history does not support That our common destiny Is certain to condemn We are many Mr President We are most of the people On this Godforsaken planet Stop this war Its true You can humiliate And you can hound And you can smash And burn and terrify And smirk and defame And demonise and dismiss And incinerate and starve And yes, you can Force a people To surrender What happens to remain Of their bloody bowels Into your grasping Bony dry hands But all of us Who are weak We watch you And we learn From your hatred And we do not forget And we are many Mr President We are most of the people On this Godforsaken planet Stop this war This killer crusade This reduction of a people To a video display This homicidal rhetoric That history does not support That our common destiny Is certain to condemn We are many Mr President We are most of the people On this Godforsaken planet Stop this war

Cease fire now Cease fire now Forever War War The western political establishment Have exposed their moral depravity Forever War They have weaponised The words human rights And democracy War They’ve weaponised These concepts against us To continue to support Forever wars Forever Forever Forever War Forever War War We are being killed By people who don’t feel That is the problem Forever Forever Forever War All these wars represent Are profits for The military industrial complex For the executives At Lockheed Martin Raytheon and Boeing Cease fire now Cease fire now War Forever Forever Forever Forever Forever War So I’m thinking Of course of peace That’s part of my dream That we don’t fight Nobody fights We get rid of All the little bombs And the big bombs

Here is a test To find whether Your mission on earth Is finished If you’re alive It isn’t I believe that anger Can be creative I’m not scared Of the word hatred Either because I believe that There are things In this world To be hated And thus corrected To be hated And thus corrected I just feel There isn’t any time For crying I believe that anger Can be creative I’m not scared Of the word hatred Either because I believe that There are things In this world To be hated And thus corrected To be hated And thus corrected I’m not scared I don’t think It would be a bad thing If you did feel Hit over the head Or shaken about Because I believe that That can be creative I believe that anger Can be creative I’m not scared Of the word hatred Either because I believe that There are things In this world To be hated And thus corrected To be hated And thus corrected What the caterpillar calls The end of the world The master calls A butterfly

Truth Is an endangered space Truth Is associated with the painful That should not be spoken And it becomes hard to get people to value Speaking freely Dissident speech The painful truth That will to silence is growing But I see the hope People are really hungry For truth Hungry For truth We are in danger Of silencing Any form of speech That goes against What is perceived to be The status quo Truth Is an endangered space People are hungry for Provocative voices That go to the heart of the matter Because they want answers To the things that they are In crisis about Dissident speech The painful truth Is not valued in our nation But I see the hope People are really hungry For truth Hungry For truth The hope that I feel Within my own self And with other people Is that hunger for truth And for ways to live our lives More fully Dissident speech The painful truth There are things we have to say That will be wounding But I believe in The outrageous pursuit of hope A society that is full of promise And possibility People are really hungry For truth Hungry For truth And its that hunger That keeps a place For the dissenting voice That keeps the place for speaking freely

Come walk with me Stumble into the unknown This world has both A fork and a knife And we're all fighting for rice As steel pays the price For a place to call home Come see the trauma Reborn before me As old battles cling onto The newly baptised names Ancient shadows pander To flickering candles Smashing each infant corner Under the rapture of flame Come sip from the cup Of these useless ideas These jobless doctrines Just flogging a career If you don't sanctify life In all of its torturous beauty The peace that you proclaim Will never be found here Now come take a look In the mirror And see eye-to-eye On what we truly are I'm all that you've got And It might not seem a lot As we bulldoze the block To enlist future scars You can't fight wars Without becoming a warrior It's never too late So don't give up Nobody knows who Wraps up the red carpet Nobody knows why The endgame is corrupt Nobody sees The bloodstains in my writing Nobody hears My ancestors scream Nobody knows Why we're always fighting And nobody can bring Your love back to me If you live long enough You learn to regret Once upon a time Is yesterday and some change If they blaze the village of a child Then what do you expect He'll replace the confusion with chaos And the chaos with rage So come walk with me Let's hold this space And try to unpack time Before we were born The universe made poetry Before I was born This world destroyed mine Nobody sees The bloodstains in my writing Nobody hears My ancestors scream Nobody knows Why we're always fighting And nobody can bring Your love back to me Nobody sees The bloodstains in my writing Nobody hears My ancestors scream Nobody knows Why we're always fighting And nobody can bring Your love back to me Nobody sees The bloodstains in my writing Nobody hears My ancestors scream So come walk with me Let's hold this space And try to unpack time Before we were born The universe made poetry Before I was born This world destroyed mine

This is my answer to the question Of why choose love? Communities sustain life Communities sustain life Within a loving community We sustain ties By being compassionate And forgiving There is no better place To learn the art of loving Than in community Marvellous, marvellous Community Marvellous, marvellous Communities sustain life Communities sustain life Not nuclear families Not the couple And certainly not The rugged individualist Community Is what will save us You’re gonna have to do it In conjunction with your neighbours And your family And the people around you You will fail as a rugged individual You will survive As a member of a tribe Or a family When we do not choose love It does not change the fact That our existence on this planet Is one of interdependency What we spend So much of our time doing Is violating that interdependency Communities sustain life Community Communities sustain life Is what will save us There is no better place To learn the art of loving Than in community

This struggle may be a moral one Or it may be A physical one But it must be a struggle Because power concedes nothing Without a demand It never did And it never will Take it all back We gotta take it all back Because they stole it from everyone And they’re not fooling anyone Anymore 40 acres 400 years How can you repay An ocean of tears? Human candles A million gold teeth Where do we place The laurel wreath? Take it all back We gotta take it all back Because the bubble is bursting And the future is burning To the ground Native lands Culture and lives Stolen and butchered Yet something survives In a world of untruth And polarised debate Only the ground gives way As you love so shall you hate Countless times Countless times Countless times Countless times Power concedes nothing Without a demand It never did And it never will Take it all back If there is no struggle There is no progress Take it all back We gotta take it all back Because we are victims no longer And the story is crumbling Into dust

I just feel There isn’t any time For crying When I have a problem I just try to work it out And I give it My conscious effort And attention