Anthropos

They will kill me one day,

My innocence, of non-importance,

My crime, will be bought to the ears of a non-existent jury,

How unjust,

They will kill me one day,

The enigma they carry,

To a man of such simplicity,

To a man of nothing,

Can only be classed as a historical mystery,

They bleed like me,

They cry and hurt like me,

Yet their heart is not like mine,

It seems their soul and spirit is a feature from another time,

Their heart is not like mine,

The role-play of an ever-living god,

In the wintry hands of the wrong men,

They shall forever wave their frozen wand,

Upon the most lost and vulnerable empire,

To have them believe they’re so strong,

With the deepest intent now they can fight your war,

They will manipulate the poor,

Conjure hate with words evil and un-pure,

They will state an empty promise to bring satisfaction to tired ears,

Yet at this point their power has become priceless,

As the history of mankind will repeat itself,

A rewind of the last 100 years,

To me their soul and spirit are pre-neutered and dead,

The cause was said to be of righteous and of best,

But they will never find a way of explaining,

The one thing that haunts an eternity,

The millions upon millions of shadowless deaths.

Like I said,

They will kill me one day.

This poem won the London Poetry Slam 2002. I was 17.

29/6/02