Darnhill Estate

 

 

            Humility imbues itself in many forms,

From the free birds early song,

To the Kora of Toumani Diabate,

From the smile of the African peoples

Who own nothing but what they wear,

To the tears shed in realisation,

When sunlight breaks the storm.

 

            A man can be a simple fellow,

And often is expressed as such within Britannia,

But if given time to bestow his self expression

Outside of peer conventions,

            He is nothing more than lonely,

            A lacking in his confidence,

            A confused and battered soul.

 

            Great Britain asks too little of her men,

Expecting as a norm all forms of thuggery,

And this is often the case on estates

Where tags are presented daily,

And culture is accused.

 

            Take this man,

Take him to far off shores where villagers

Are not there to sport how egocentric

They can be,

            And the man from Langley,

Back of the Moss or Darnhill,

Will see at once a freedom – see

At once how insignificant the quarrelsome

Of patriotism,

                        He would at last be free himself.

 

            These young men,

Swearing at each a bastard,

Fighting for supremacy boasting bruises –

Deep in shock from lifetimes of abuses;

Can find themselves again if they

Could find the courage to peer over the edge,

            They would see;

A pair of laughing loving foreign eyes

Peering back in friendship,

Not so foreign as told by

Xenophobes clinging to the past.

 

            What has Rule Britannia

Done unto her young?

What has nurturing of ignorance done to all

Those youthful expressions of the inquisitive;–

But fuelled a bloody sport?

 

            A man is expected to attain

Himself before the lord,

But all is thrown like garden waste

Before the courts,

            Courts that,

Are in honesty not qualified

To harvest, or nurture

Youthful trains of thought,

Those young expressions now

Going Stir Crazy on Estates,

Are left without options but

To wear tags that take their liberty,

And following lines of indoctrination –

Declare themselves ASBO’s,

That in essence is where beleaguer’d

Pride has gone,

           

            There are many better men

To follow than the gangsters grooming

You for hell,

            And I know the tears young men

Have shed for the roles they have been

Adorned, for I have shed them too,

            Time to step outside the box

            Time to fly from pigeon holes

And see the laughing eyes wishing you

Their friendship,

            And truly

Express the man inside,

 

            Climb the wall,

            Break it down,

            Blow it up if need be,

But don’t throw away your life,

Don’t turn away those laughing eyes

You see within yourself,

Share a joke,

            A story,

                        At tale that takes some thwarting,

Perhaps a dignity of a fellow man and be,

            Be whole,

                        Be you,

                                    Be self of wealth,

And shake the fellow hand of freedom.

 

Michael J Waite 15^th June 2010.