It’s at times like these
I think of my ancestors.
My rhythm nation and my voicings.
Who I choose to be, you see?
Northern Europeans, Vikings
Crossing the seas of wonder.
Up and over and under
Who you think I am
If you merely reduce my label
To Brit.
Have you no sense youngster?
Can you not see it son ?
Have you no curiosity?
Can you not dig deeper
With your squat pen
And sense of home place?
There’s more to me
Than meets the eye.
So, go on, try harder.
Go search for longer
In your locked up cold larder
To find my treasures.
Measure me more by who I am
Rather than who you think I am.
Let me take you on a journey
Of empire, invasion and colonisation.
But not in Ireland.
Trace my line back to mother India
To Peru, Colombia, Mexico
And Puerto Rico.
But surely I’m just a Brit?
How can that possibly fit
That tight wee box
You would have me exist in.
In your narrow alley world?
We are all the richer
For knowing who we are
Rather than the Brit shit colours
You would paint me with.
Ah now, go stretch your imaginings
To see the real underpinnings
Of our great nation.
A loving group of immigrants
Floating on a Wolfland raft
Our older name we had
When we were but a forest of folks.
Yet to be brought low
By religion, petty kingships
Freedom fighters, wiping lives
And the stain of modern politics.
Pricks in abundance
Screwing a country
Ripe for the taking.
I’m making a stand for who I am.
And if you don’t like it
You can leave the party
Boys . . .
A northern Irish artist
AKA. Dangerous Banana.
RSH. My Beating Heart.
By Randall Steohen Hall.
And it came to pass that for the sins of the Germans
the Palestinians paid dearly.
They forced them into ghettoes
and killed thousands of them
and took their land,
And when they fought back
with their little bombs
they were killed with bigger USA bombs,
and more land was taken for settlers.
And the ‘cultured nations’
who were silent when the
Nazis began the onslaught,
again became silent,
and looked away.
Andí McNib.
nonde plume