Hi there

Attached is my recording of William Blake's London, with my own poem Lights Out as a coda.

The words to Lights Out are below.

Thanks!

The cameras whirr and purr

On graffiti-less walls

And a megaphone calls out:

THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR.

And I’m sure they can hear every secret I’ve kept

And the thudding of my every footstep

Everyone’s scared of being scared

Regretting and forgetting

Hyperaware but still no one cares

We lost the battle

So I guess fair’s fair

I hear the clinking of glasses and muffled laughter

From upstairs

It’s past the ten o’clock curfew

Someone’ll phone in

And the police’ll break in

Silenced guns silencing

 

We lost control

Now life’s nothing but a toll

A number on a payroll

Face down, knuckles clenched tight and white

We sit and stare at our still pints

Because it’s easier than admitting we gave up the fight

11’o clock rolls in

The siren’s sounding

No more lock-ins

The lenses are twitching

So we drink up without bitching

A pen begins scribbling

Words in the back of my throat

That threaten to creeping up to the tip of my tounge

 

Home’s less a home

And more like a prison

Through the prism of digital eyes

I’m trying to remember a time

When the Average Person was just a myth

In my sleep I riff and tinker

With the edges of non-thinking

And sometimes I dream of this city sinking

And wake up with a strange warm glow in my belly

Then the grey damp reality hits me

 

But they won’t fucking take me

And they won’t fucking break me

I’m fed up with being a tourist of what someone else

Thinks is stable

I leave my ID card on the kitchen table

They won’t be able to see my plan

They’ll regret the day they fucked with the little man

I open my front door

The wind and rain claws at my face

And with this little blade I’ll take them with me to Hell

My heart’s pounding like a funeral knell

I take one last look at my cell

And turn the lights out