The Point
Last updated:
27 June 2022.
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For 1917 and 2017: A few lines of defiance and hope - from a bedroom in Scotland to the World
Nobody ever said it would be easy…
Ten million voices know what is wrong
Ten million solutions for putting it right
And a billion eyes see encroaching night
Nobody ever said it would be easy…
Young woman in Dresden with sullied hijab
Teacher in Mosul, burnt, tortured, and stabbed
Are the bombs that fall here
Better than the bombs that fall there?
Nobody ever said it would be easy…
Blue sky, new sky, no longer our true sky
Green Plains turn,
Dry, dry, dry...
Choking dust deserts, drowning floods rise
We might have done something…
But it’s no surprise, no surprise…
Nobody ever said it would be easy…
Time, again, and now: children cry in their sleep
Mares of the darkness to make a cyborg weep
All they have known turned to wind-blown ash
In the final, brilliant, plutonium flash
Nobody ever said it would be easy…
The peasants
Still queue at the gargoyled gate
Poor and white in Bristol,
Poor and black in Washington State
And who shall they rage at?
And who shall they hate?
Nobody ever said it would be easy…
Five decades since promises of jet packs and space
Forwards! Backwards! Forwards!
With this cantankerous human race
No simple solutions, no rest, or easy grace
Nobody ever said it would be easy…
Gallus folk fight that their nation be reborn
To free their eagles, their kelpies, their strange unicorn
A defeat doesn’t leave a dream
Shattered, ended or torn…
Nobody ever said it would be easy…
The Lass fae Niddrie, the boy from Benin,
Bullied New Yorker, Old man in Beijing
At wit’s end, longing
For all manner of things
Nobody ever said it would be easy
Who owns the trains? Who owns the planes?
Who owns the screens where we play our games?
Who owns the banks? Who owns the tanks?
The hollow places for submissive thanks?
Nobody ever said it would be easy…
So...
For you and I, and yours and ours,
And those who raise the shield
The future’s no’ yet ower
Don’t dare you bow or cower
Before the weapons that they wield
Gather up your armour,
Once more take the bloodied field
With wearied heart, and aching limb
Deny, defy, expose the lie
That only they create the real.
You are not a single mind
The days to come are not yet sealed
Fight on, fight on, and you will find
A million hearts will with you strive
For the right of all
To be true…and alive!
Remake this Earth for all humankind!
Rebuild it as a Common Weal!
You must not yield
You will not yield
To the Lords of Capital
Or any Man of Steel!
But nobody ever said it would be easy…
Steve Arnott
Other articles by Steve Arnott in The Point include:
Arthur C Clarke: A Very Modern Odyssey
A Tribute to Neil Armstrong... or 'Where's that f*****g space elevator?
The European stem cell research ban – why and how we should fight it
Enriching Scotland’s Common Weal through Scottish Inventions and Innovations
(science and ideas)
The Conspiracy of Doves I – Darwin, Marx and The Conspiracy of Doves
The Conspiracy of Doves III - The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, part one
Postcapitalism: An Overview – Part One
(Darwinist-Marxism, evolution/revolution, post-capitalism)
Teaching Tom…and Dick and Harry and Jane: A Personal Reply to Tom Hunter on Scottish Education
The Culture: Iain Banks’ Greatest Creation
(culture, education, The Culture)
Reversing privatisation and PFI using a ‘windfall’ financing model
2013, A Year to Go: Independence and Raising the Game in Phase 2
Achieving gender balance in an Independent Scottish Parliament (co-authored with Liz Walker)
Taking back what’s ours: Why we need a Public Commission on Public Ownership
Max the YES: Tactical Voting for Holyrood 2016, Yes or No.
(independence, socialism, progressive policy ideas)
On seeing Orcas in Burra Sound
(poetry, verse, fiction)
Steve’s novel, Pilot of the Storm, First of ‘The Star King’s Proxy’ trilogy, is also available to buy or rent at…