To sign a statement is to raise your hand
In the open view of anyone. You may
Be named, accused or slandered, made to stand
In the dock of those who shout you're in their way.
You're in the way, much like the scholar who
Stood before the tank and argued, although
He knew what a soldier was obliged to do
And where that tank was most likely to go.
OK, so choose your own analogy.
We like to see ourselves as David, brave
Before the giant who’s not as big as he looks,
Arguing points of ideology
Near bloody squares, over the mass grave,
While carrying our shopping bags and books.
*
With shopping bags and books you lumber home
To the best of your mixed blessings. It's where you are
In the land of low turn out, millennium dome
And gradualism, your second-hand car
Your form-filling, the colours of the prism
Known, faintly contemptible and ripe
For comedy, affection, scepticism,
With nuggets of delight among the tripe.
It’s little enough to raise your hand for this,
For anyone else anywhere. It makes a strange
Human cohesion, a frayed elastic band.
Courage and generosity might miss
The mark sometimes but I believe their range
Is useful. It is for them I raise my hand.
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