Poetry: Anthem for the newly doomed
Title: Anthem for the newly doomed
Genre: Poetry
Rating: Teen to adult
Warnings: Mature themes, Mature language
Summary:
Slightly epic. This is the longest piece of poetry I have ever written, and it was written as a response to the demonization of young people in the United Kingdom, so not all of it may make sense to those outside of the motherland, however, I would hope that certain elements of it are universal. I hope this is appropriate material to be posted here as I'm not sure what the rules are on poetry.
Drink, Drugs, Sex, Brutality,
Just another sign of the youth mentality,
Drink Drugs, Sex Brutality,
Just another sign of the youth mentality
But you weren’t there, In the back garden of my ex boyfriends council house standing
On some collapsed hunk of wood by a makeshift bullshit bonfire burning blackened smoke into the night and blasted out of my mind on weed and shrooms and cheap white cider standing by while the one friend who knows how to play the guitar stands holding one while we all sing wait:
They don’t love you, like I love you.
So we smoke and we drank and we stole and we fought and we talked
About when the next party was and who was fucking who
And about when we lost our faith in god or if we never had it at all and about that one crazy bastard who came after M with a knife because he was so fucked up and crazy in love with C and about who’s turn it was to do brews, and to roll the next spliff.
Now, in reciting this would it fulfil your estimation
That my friends and I were quite beyond salvation
And that with the sad remainder of our generation
That we should be written off,
As an acceptable loss,
As the inevitable cost
Of our existence eclipses out potential.
Well, the final quantity of this
Is one of us training now to be a scientist
And that kid with the guitar still hitting out riffs
As a hard core riot girl feminist,
Singing his own songs about bitches and queers,
About self destruction and the coming out years,
And about the - quite rational - fears,
That he will be outlived by all his peers.
And I’m tryin’a write poetry,
Tryin’a make art,
Tryin’a prove that it ain’t mutually exclusive,
Being young and smart,
And to keep from being torn apart,
By a society that hates and fears its own young.
Now, I’m not denying that
Kids can be violent,
But if you are trying to fix it
Step back from the symptoms and look for the sickness,
For example,
Since I was twelve years old I been told
That the world’s about to implode
In another violent episode
Because of muslim bombers with no soul,
I should give the government complete control,
Cause on the whole,
Peace, Freedom, and Justice, is the goal.
Which is why we don’t need fair trials no more,
And excuse me, but what the hell do we need a no protest zone for?
When the largest protest this country ever had,
Against their war,
Was promptly ignored?
Example two:
Nineteen years old and six grand in debt,
After one year of higher education,
So what did you expect?
After being broken for success?
After being told - If you don’t pass this test
If you don’t die from stress
If you’re not good enough,
Smart enough,
Nice enough,
To pass, this abstract concept of a lesson;
Then you’ll never accomplish anythin’
Then you’ll die poor and lonely,
And if you do prove your worth as a human being,
Then you can pay us three thousand pounds a year for the privelidge of knowledge that we received for free.
Example three:
We are living in a world were we are defined,
Aligned
And have our personalities assigned,
Not by the mind,
But buy what we are buyin’.
Locked into the cold, consumerist regime,
I own
Therefore I am.
I own
Therefore,
I am.
So I submit to you simplistic background lore,
Our options are: Die young - stupid or poor,
The young part is not optional of course,
Our futures one more national resource,
Sold off.
One more self replicating product.
So what are the choices really left to us?
What is the manner to which we should conduct?
Accept our fate?
Or en masse, self destruct?
Now you may disagree with what I am asserting,
But you have to concede that the Asbo’s aren’t working,
And it’s not because we’re all fucked up kids smoking dope,
We’re the tested equation of how people cope,
Here stands the residue,
Youth minus hope.
Now to my generation I pose a solution,
I won’t suggest to distribute retribution,
But to take up a cultural revolution.
For my own part,
I’m tired of listening,
While they blame the musicians for the kids they can’t reach,
The product of when a society lets the media teach
We have the housing crisis, terrorism, gang activity,
But more than this we have a crisis of objectivity,
Let me repeat that,
Objectivity.
Like,
How not to believe what you hear on Tv,
Like failing to agree,
When they decree,
That you and I are dumber than the year before us,
Or that you and I expect to have the world adore us,
That we’re all violent idiots and nothing can change us:
Well I know I’m not violent but let me be dangerous,
And say lets fight against the forces in the world that estrange us,
And let us be intrinsic and let us be contagious
For the word is a weapon, so let it rearrange us.
Genre: Poetry
Rating: Teen to adult
Warnings: Mature themes, Mature language
Summary:
Slightly epic. This is the longest piece of poetry I have ever written, and it was written as a response to the demonization of young people in the United Kingdom, so not all of it may make sense to those outside of the motherland, however, I would hope that certain elements of it are universal. I hope this is appropriate material to be posted here as I'm not sure what the rules are on poetry.
Drink, Drugs, Sex, Brutality,
Just another sign of the youth mentality,
Drink Drugs, Sex Brutality,
Just another sign of the youth mentality
But you weren’t there, In the back garden of my ex boyfriends council house standing
On some collapsed hunk of wood by a makeshift bullshit bonfire burning blackened smoke into the night and blasted out of my mind on weed and shrooms and cheap white cider standing by while the one friend who knows how to play the guitar stands holding one while we all sing wait:
They don’t love you, like I love you.
So we smoke and we drank and we stole and we fought and we talked
About when the next party was and who was fucking who
And about when we lost our faith in god or if we never had it at all and about that one crazy bastard who came after M with a knife because he was so fucked up and crazy in love with C and about who’s turn it was to do brews, and to roll the next spliff.
Now, in reciting this would it fulfil your estimation
That my friends and I were quite beyond salvation
And that with the sad remainder of our generation
That we should be written off,
As an acceptable loss,
As the inevitable cost
Of our existence eclipses out potential.
Well, the final quantity of this
Is one of us training now to be a scientist
And that kid with the guitar still hitting out riffs
As a hard core riot girl feminist,
Singing his own songs about bitches and queers,
About self destruction and the coming out years,
And about the - quite rational - fears,
That he will be outlived by all his peers.
And I’m tryin’a write poetry,
Tryin’a make art,
Tryin’a prove that it ain’t mutually exclusive,
Being young and smart,
And to keep from being torn apart,
By a society that hates and fears its own young.
Now, I’m not denying that
Kids can be violent,
But if you are trying to fix it
Step back from the symptoms and look for the sickness,
For example,
Since I was twelve years old I been told
That the world’s about to implode
In another violent episode
Because of muslim bombers with no soul,
I should give the government complete control,
Cause on the whole,
Peace, Freedom, and Justice, is the goal.
Which is why we don’t need fair trials no more,
And excuse me, but what the hell do we need a no protest zone for?
When the largest protest this country ever had,
Against their war,
Was promptly ignored?
Example two:
Nineteen years old and six grand in debt,
After one year of higher education,
So what did you expect?
After being broken for success?
After being told - If you don’t pass this test
If you don’t die from stress
If you’re not good enough,
Smart enough,
Nice enough,
To pass, this abstract concept of a lesson;
Then you’ll never accomplish anythin’
Then you’ll die poor and lonely,
And if you do prove your worth as a human being,
Then you can pay us three thousand pounds a year for the privelidge of knowledge that we received for free.
Example three:
We are living in a world were we are defined,
Aligned
And have our personalities assigned,
Not by the mind,
But buy what we are buyin’.
Locked into the cold, consumerist regime,
I own
Therefore I am.
I own
Therefore,
I am.
So I submit to you simplistic background lore,
Our options are: Die young - stupid or poor,
The young part is not optional of course,
Our futures one more national resource,
Sold off.
One more self replicating product.
So what are the choices really left to us?
What is the manner to which we should conduct?
Accept our fate?
Or en masse, self destruct?
Now you may disagree with what I am asserting,
But you have to concede that the Asbo’s aren’t working,
And it’s not because we’re all fucked up kids smoking dope,
We’re the tested equation of how people cope,
Here stands the residue,
Youth minus hope.
Now to my generation I pose a solution,
I won’t suggest to distribute retribution,
But to take up a cultural revolution.
For my own part,
I’m tired of listening,
While they blame the musicians for the kids they can’t reach,
The product of when a society lets the media teach
We have the housing crisis, terrorism, gang activity,
But more than this we have a crisis of objectivity,
Let me repeat that,
Objectivity.
Like,
How not to believe what you hear on Tv,
Like failing to agree,
When they decree,
That you and I are dumber than the year before us,
Or that you and I expect to have the world adore us,
That we’re all violent idiots and nothing can change us:
Well I know I’m not violent but let me be dangerous,
And say lets fight against the forces in the world that estrange us,
And let us be intrinsic and let us be contagious
For the word is a weapon, so let it rearrange us.