Read Hold Your Own for Free Online Page B

became the great oppressor.
     
    And without God, the wars seemed crueller
    life seemed bleaker. Art seemed foolish.
     
    Death seemed stranger now than ever.
    What was mankind for? What terror
     
    flooded us to understand
    there was no point, no grander plan.
     
    There was just living out each day.
    Work. Eat. Sleep. Fuck. Pass away.
     
    Without the fear of retribution
    we found guilt-free pleasure
     
    but we lost the sense of union
    that had kept us all together.
     
    We needed something new
    to fill the emptiness that grew;
     
    and what’s better to believe in
    than all-you-can-eat Freedom!
     
    The joy of being who we are
    by virtue of the clothes we buy.
     
    The dream of getting rich enough
    to live outside the common life.
     
    And now, there is no purpose
    that exists beyond our needs.
     
    Now there is the worship
    of convenience and speed.
     
    We run around the circuit,
    pit our grace against our greed
     
    And all we have is surplus
    to what’s needed and we feed
     
    our callous little urchins
    in the best way that we can.
     
    And then wonder how they’ve grown
    to only know what’s in their hands.
     
    Now we have the Screen,
    and it rules.
     
    Our kids are perma-plugged into its promise,
    admiring all its jewels.
     
    And couples eat their dinner,
    in the glimmer of its rays,
     
    we stare until
    we’ve learned the world’s ways.
     
    Pre-teens learn what heart-throbs are.
    Heart-throbs gorge on hot pork and watch sport.
     
    Reality played for us to sneer and weep at –
    here is morality at last! See us caught
     
    in full colour, high definition.
     
    Look – a cripple on a blind date.
    Look – young people getting fucked in Magaluf,
     
    look – the mother of a dead son, weeping, irate,
    look – a celebrity eating shit and singing Agadoo.
     
    We used to burn women who had epileptic fits.
    We’d tie them to a stake and proclaim them a witch.
     
    Now
     
    we’ll put them on a screen if they’ve got nice tits,
    but they’ll be torn apart if they let themselves slip.
     
    We’ll draw red rings round their saggy bits.
    And flick through the pictures while we eat bags of chips.
     
    You can either be a beauty or a beast or a bitch,
    you can either be cool or kooky or kitsch.
     
    Before
     
    you were damned for the things that you did,
    or if you didn’t live how the villagers lived.
     
    Now
     
    You’re handed the mould and told – fit in to this.
    And maybe one day you could really be big.
     
    Behind-the-scenes footage
    of a famous last gig.
     
    Backstage close-up
    of the singer’s last twitch.
     
    Before she pulls her gun out
    and blows herself to bits.
     
    The world is your playground,
    go and get your kicks,
     
    as long as you’re not poor,
    or ugly, or sick.
     
    We never saw it coming,
    like all the best tricks.
     
    Once we had the fear;
    now we have the fix.

The downside
    They cornered me
    and held their knives up to my throat.
     
    They asked me for the football scores.
    They asked me for the winning horse.
     
    They asked me for the lotto draw.
    Six numbers each and bonus balls.
     
    All I could see
    in flickering, ultraviolet pixels
     
    Were their great-grandchildren
    ripped to pieces by the missiles

Fine, thanks
    To really see the state of things is lethal.
    It’s safer just to see what we can bear.
    Exhausting being fear-struck; howling, weak-willed.
    Much nicer to be bathing in the glare
     
    of all that we have built to shine and soothe us
    what use are eyes at all in times like this?
    Please don’t bother raising arms to shoot us,
    we’ll shoot ourselves. No really, we insist.
     
    No guns. Just give us brands and bills and wages,
    and rent that takes our dignity away.
    Don’t trouble yourselves with handcuffs and with cages.
    There’s cleaner ways than that to make us pay.
     
    What good can come from listening to our instincts?
    You think it’s easy putting up like this?
    Don’t make a fuss, you know us, we’re the English,
    and peace on Earth