And Gil Scott Heron is Dead…and
I guess the one thing I have realized from the last few days
Or hours.
Is never underestimate the power of tears.

Too easily they are the faux index – the itchy trigger finger for forgiveness and aw it’ll be okay…

Too often you can be sitting at the end of the bed or mirror apologizing for someone-elses thoughtless greed.

But then you are not allowed be upset – upset is just a cheapskate emotion you feel when things don’t go your way. And all too often
Things don’t go your way. But don’t be upset
You can’t be upset
You didn’t fill out the right forms.

And anyway – if you have such a problem with it –
You should have voted differently.
Should have used your voice
Should have done something –
Found a quiet street somewhere and marched up and down chanting your slogans – singing your rebel songs – waiting for your five minutes, your two euros, your spotlight pat on the head that tells you it’s okay
You can go home now,
Get the tea on.

In this – the great Irish Republic of Hamlin – we don’t have politicians – we have pipers and we don’t know whether we’re children or rats – all we know is – we’re dancing to that tune – their tune – no, our tune – your tune
and the pipes they are calling it’s just no knees are jigging with arms nailed firmly by the side ‘lest that be a sign of resistance and the blue capped beating stick have license to crack another skull and when the hole in the mountainside closes, no one will have noticed whether we came or went.

It ain’t really a lie – you just didn’t understand.
It ain’t really a lie – you just didn’t read the fine print.
And anyway
You can’t be upset
Don’t be upset.

A place where a mandate of the people means out of two choices – yes or no – you, all of you, obviously got the answer wrong. But don’t worry, we’ll give you a chance to pick the right one out of A or B again and again and again
and again and again and again
until you pick the right one out of the two.

Don’t be upset though.
Upset is just something you feel when things don’t go your way.

We are now that nation sat at the end of the bed, mirror, head in hands, claws in hair in that afterward heebie filled blue light hour of goblins and regret. Waiting for that last straggler to tell us it’ll be okay except they can’t talk they’re too busy chawing their own eye on the last beer and pondering can they make a quick exit without helping tidy up.

Controlling your words will control your world.
Controlling a depression will control your oppression and so when the man on the white horse offers big eyes and a warm clammy hand with the words ”Come with me if you want to live”
”Come with me if you want to be happy again”
You quickly become the blushing tear streaked Marian waiting for your heartbeat to match the gallop.

It’s twenty five years since ‘Self Aid’
Twenty five years since the glorious time of Irish artists taking stage to ask the Irish people to help themselves.
And they did
Except it was like throwing a fiver down on a table for beers as you’re on your way out the door.
Because all they did was what they did best.
Leave.

Natural resources and an educated work force will change your world. We thought we were leaving the third world
Skiffing through the second to take a rightful place in the first.
Except all we did was enter the elevator.
Now, stuck between floors – we’re ringing the bell – sweaty – wide-eyed -repeating ”I’m not supposed to be here – we’re not supposed to be here” Except no one can hear the bell but us and anyone fool enough to stand by one of the doors. An old model, they never got around to putting the phone in.

But don’t be upset
You can’t be upset
Things just didn’t go your way.

In this pan-European legal petri dish. The lines of the day – decade – century are ”Keep your head down” and “If you have to say anything – say nothing at all” We moved from a time when you were careful what you said and in what tongue you said it ‘lest your masters catch a syllable and you find yourself in trouble.
We skipped to a time when you were careful what you said regardless the tongue, ‘lest your brothers hear you and you find yourself dead. A necessary tax in the war for freedom.
We never really left that time it’s just the numbers on the calendar changed.
And if it wasn’t tighten your belts – it was keep your mouth shut – how we can be copped for corruption so late when the whole country was in on the gig. In that same way that movie kid from the poor places finds himself and you feel for him because he may have no way out but not to speak and struggle to find an exit.
Where the term The Rising is only a put your damn hand back on that flag pole call to nostalgia – a remembrance of whence bread and toe the line.
Where We, ourselves are the opposition waving fingers at corruption at those on the white horse. Yet all they are, is jobs for the boys, the constant shuffling deck of employment where someones cousin will get a job under someone else while they are a counsellor and so on and so forth -
But you – we –
Say nothing at all.
Because it does not matter how far away from the bullet they claim they are.
Scratch enough and ”I know someone who knows someone…” there is no veil, not even gossamer. The image of the balaclava is ever present and I don’t know anyone who isn’t indignant but too wary of the fact that ”Haha, you may end up shot. Ha…ha”

But don’t be upset
You can’t be upset
Things just didn’t go your way.
And anyway,
You could have used your voice.

The current status quo has placed us in a situation that we can only look like a comedians television show that has passed its time, become earnest, sleeve tugging and just not funny anymore. The economic Benny Hill, we are Happy Days, just after jumping the shark.
Remember – we’re looking for anything that resembles hope.
And don’t you even attempt to take that away from us.
Comforting ourselves with news from elsewhere and reports of unrest around the union. Because, at least, at the very least, we’re not ”That bad.” That red eyed pandering time when the weak and wounded learn how to hug themselves as they rock back and forth.

Don’t be upset.
You can’t be upset.

Here in the Irish Republic of Hamlin, the police are like a comic book written by an indecisive schizophrenic – where each issue you read they seem to have new more potent powers and we’ll jail a single mother for not paying her television license. Where it doesn’t matter – if you want to get away with something you didn’t do, don’t argue with them. The line in the sand is guilty until proved innocent and it’s not worth trying to prove your innocence. The Judge isn’t in to listening and may well impose whatever the full sentence is just because you thought to speak up. Tugging your forelock and saying you did it is the best foot forward in most things, you’ll dip your hand in the poor box and walk away with an unblemished record. A strange sort of legal protection racket – institutionalised mob ethics we don’t talk about.
No different really – than the rest of our Island
Everybody knows somebody and if you just know the right person
You can sort it out – for a price, of course.

We are – if nothing else
A place of such ear shattering silence – that you can never underestimate the power of tears.
A place where you can near kick a man to death.
A place where in the words of a Judge you can give a man ”An unmerciful beating.”
A place where you can
Knock him out.
Break his face.
Kick his teeth out.
Give him bleeding on the brain.
And it’s okay. If you’re a policeman – you won’t serve a penny of that time.
As you wait on paid leave you will make sure they know prison will if nothing else be way too tough for you, way too tough…
And it doesn’t matter – that guy got his dime
And it doesn’t matter – you’re a cop – the law is different for you, the law is harder for you and as such the law should not apply to you like it does the others.
And anyway
Be sure to cry.
Be sure to get those tears on the stand.

Because you’ll walk where we’d be down for four or more.

Because you can never underestimate the power of tears.

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