Hopeful Heroes

For my friend and fellow Poet Jacqui

Hope is a muscle bound and found in faith 

forever safe in our hearts

and like a guard to the stars 

as each hero departs, we ache for change, 

or a refrain, that doesn’t say they were but are a sticking point, not a scar 

for some Trump-like figure to spit and shit upon

Why must your voice be louder than mine?

You say I haven’t lived, 

With no time to shine in your Capitalist shrine 

but I’ve lived a thousand lives just fine and died more times than you can count 

seen the unseen

suppressed my screams

over and over –

all before the age of thirty – 

Am I worthy? 

Or just plain topsy-turvy? 

trying to win a fast-paced race?

Whilst pushing back the hate

 no one listened to me –

“Go an’ die in a ditch bitch!”

And because there is no cure for being born,

each piece of flesh and bone has been torn leaving nothing but bleeding

(and a heart I used to call my own) 

Time, well, it makes nothing fine

it just grinds as the soul declines

sleeping itself away 

into what we deem an early grave

Yes, we are enslaved by its passing

its name fasting in the process of waiting for the better

Better what?

Better who?

You?

Me?

The girl next door? 

What the fuck for?

Time has no means and no end 

yet, again, we treat it, as a friend, letting it bend

endlessly’

It doesn’t give a damn about us

it stands,

has its own plan

but we still continue to use it, abuse it, 

even confuse it with reality,

not understanding it is a universal truth – always changing 

mutating, complaining of its responsibility for life,

our problems, moulding into something true, something new

whilst severing the lines of history

It is not time itself that gives us hope but the voices that defy it

and then, in turn, intelligently compile it,

into something we can all hear,

shouts, scarlet screams, breaking seams, 

pushing for peace, the planet, and the poor,

Freedom is a rebellion and more

It is a right to fight in the name of good 

an active action that exclaims

“We did all we could” 

(at least while the world was still turning)

our yearnings the fuel driving us fiercely and fearlessly forward

These are the verses that tread the coals proud

singing loud,

in spite of the gunfire

With an ever-burning desire for change  

these are the words able to drain the seamless rising waters’

the poets that shape the future

speaking in a language forever becoming

untouched and untamed 

deaf to the shame of the yet to move clock hands

© Kay Channon

Kay Channon is a Poet, Writer, and PhD Student from Dorset (United Kingdom). Her debut poetry collection The Dark Side of Light is published by Bardic Media and available through Amazon. She is currently focusing on her experiences of walking with hope and pain as part of her Doctoral research at the University of Chichester in West Sussex. She is also part of a forthcoming pamphlet supported by Hedgehog Poetry Press and a Blogger for Disability Arts Online. You can follow her progress or contact her via Twitter: @KayChannon.

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This post was written by Kay Channon