Close to the Heart

Do the right thing and always be polite
Mum sang and stuck right and polite to my heart tight
In my cradle. I grew up to our fathers’ cradle see
And the heads would these words live across the sea.

O, sweet cradle, a quarter century in your sight
For that quarter century I watched the fight
In which two divine rights knaves would slay
Peace and freedom warriors just to stay.

Another near quarter century out of your sight
My ears drank full tales of the fight
And you, in mind and sight, I did bear all the time
And you even paid me visits by day and at bedtime;

And like the tales told to us by parents at night;
Tales of giants, Cyclopes, amputees & monsters of dreadful height,
The tales you bring of the knaves tell of gore
Sealing mouths of words short, filling the heart with sore.

The stab mirrors the plight
’N invite to make it light
Yet, all attempts lasted a while
And the effort and time were worthwhile.

All this while the knaves proclaimed their might
Building for all, four sturdy walls of fright
Within which the masses heaped in a pile
Squirm and scream to rend them senile.

The knaves in their dream made a giant stride
Until they caught the masses having a joy ride
Stalling all their cheap quest for fame,
Drumming them the music of shame

And now we no longer sit and bide
Waiting for the messiah to alight
But have to dance to every tune but blues
And not eschew but savour all with no spews

This has to be done from morning till night
And has to be done till the wrong is right
Flat must be made all the hills that on our way
Stood, and the muddle of the gore swept away.

The world might have viewed our cause as a trite
Yet, the undoing at the end, our source of pride
And we now borne a smile
That we carry in grand style.

Enlightened, the nation joined without fright
And aboard a ship we did freight
The blood spilling knaves and lackeys to other lands
Rekindling joys in the nation’s heart and stilling the old bands.


12/02/08