If only
If only I’d had one moment, if only I’d had some time
if only I could make some still small sense of this imaginary rhyme
If only I’d not chased shadows, challenged, instead, their version of the truth
if only the world’s crazy misshapen axis hadn’t been tipped on its ancient misshapen roof
If only I’d ruffled feathers, if only I’d raised some doubt
if only the spruikers of rectitude didn’t make me believe what it was that they crowed endlessly about
If only the trails and the highways, gave me signs along the way
if only the self-righteous clowns in suits had died or gone astray
If only I’d sprung from Corona’s bench and shouted what I thought
if only the silver tongued salesmen hadn’t been allowed to sell me what I bought
If only the soporific axioms of society’s judgemental gaze
hadn’t stalked the unsuspecting, expecting us to follow all our days
If only the publicly funded rulers, proselytising till they bleed
had bothered to even realise, onto their ground fell barren, poisoned seed
If only the so-called penitents had railed and sallied forth
and stormed the gates of the sanctified, showing them all what they were worth
If only the hypocrites and messengers, the dogs who barked at every wheel
had instead turned on their masters, chased them, mauled them, so they’d somehow get to feel
the insipidness and emptiness of everything they teach
while proclaiming thoughts of greatness in the moment that they preach
If only the sanctimonious hadn’t dragged their religions near
and based their protestations on the very things they fear
If only our dreams hadn’t been burned, scarred by their Machiavellian brief
if only their imaginations, lacking, had shown them up in stark relief
If only the schools and teachers, in refusing to be changed
had realised that it’s better to be wrong than to be intellectually estranged
If only when they’d been shown up by long haired fugitives
had they admitted to themselves they did not know how the other lives
If only I’d noticed emptiness, instead of shop-worn bored consumptions
if only I’d just ignored their tunes, their well organised assumptions
If only the patriarchs on their recliners, who sat in judgement all day long
had known that making others weak did not in turn then make them strong
If only the halls of politics, where the unimaginative beat their chest
on their cloistered archipelagos, where they decide that they know best
If only they’d imagine their irrelevance, from the corner of their eye
if only they’d notice the rumblings in the streets before they craft their lie
If only the anodyne reflections of those who divide and rule
had made them pause a moment, to know there is not equality in school
If only the revolution had purged the nation’s conscience, if not the nation’s guilt
then all the longings, turned down, refused could then have it all rebuilt.