Good morning, good mourning,
Today I am sharing this new piece made in collaboration with Wolfgang Dubieniec. This is the first of our collaborations with film, music and poems.
The poem While Justice Waits was written in the spring of 2020, following the brutal murder of George Floyd on May 25th 2020 and the powerful international Black Lives Matter protests that followed. The audio performance of this poem was recorded live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, at NYLON, Apples and Snakes, October 2023.
Backstory: At the height of the global pandemic, I made a version of this poem with music composed and performed by Anna Phoebe. Our lockdown collaborations were performed and filmed remotely and then shared at York Cathedral, York Festival. I remember the first time I ever shared and performed this poem live on stage, it was at Rich Mix, Shoreditch, reading alongside Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors as part of her OWN IT! London book tour in the spring of 2022. What an incredibly inspiring meeting that was. While Justice Waits was published in a special edition of Wasafari commissioned by guest editor Darren Chetty. While Justice Waits was highly commended by The Forward Prize and published in The Forward Book Of Poetry Anthology 2024. You’ll find this poem in the hardback edition of ‘Pessimism is for Lightweights’.
It is beautiful to me how poems change shape as the time passes. How certain lines in this particular poem hit differently to us today. Just four years since it was made. How this poem has travelled, each performance, each reading, taking on new meanings and extra layers. Thank you so much to Wolfgang for making this beautiful 2024 version of the poem.
I love this image: the hand of a child playing and flying. The simple act of dancing in the wind, the fragility of one minute. The innocence of play, of feeling, of dance, of weightlessness, of daydreaming. How we are all living in this time, sharing our dreams and our nightmares, we rise and fall and rise again, wavering in pockets of air and light and shadow.
While Justice Waits
there they go again
filling your mouth
with their name
there they go again
adding more weight
to your burden
there they go again
giving you all this anxiety
whilst telling you not to panic
when the panic is rooted in
centuries of …
there they go again
there they go again
there they go again
contradicting their own rules
double speak and double standards
there they go again
your dead are statistics
your ghosts live in hashtags
there they go again
getting away with murder
but calling it anything else
there they go again
doing nothing as your vulnerable
and sick and dying
need all your love and care
and your living need all of your
focus, energy and time
there they go again
filling your plate
with their jobs
and the work
they should do
as your elected leaders
there they go again,
dominating your thoughts
so no work can get done
there they go again
grimacing on the front page
hogging the limelight
with performative cruelty
there they go again
suffocating light and hope
like a pillow held fast over the face
of the kicking and struggling truth
there they go again
consuming all the oxygen
and rewriting history
there they go again
like it's all about them
but it is because of them
and it is in spite of them
there they go again
obscuring the facts
blurring the edges
blinkering the horse
filtering the picture
there they go again
there they go again
there they go again
and it is not the names of the dead
nor the name of the nurse
not the name of the innocent
but their name in your mouth
how can it be?
that when you wake in the night
wailing and mourning and hurting
they are marching on your tongue
they are renting your insomnia
there they go again
using your anguish as garnish
using your defence as an attack
using your fear to divide you
using your rage to pass draconian laws
using your pain to sell shit back to you
using your grief to decorate newspapers
using your anger to kill you
because
there they go again
there they go again
there they go again
casting an ass in the lead role
the wealthy politicians in the spotlight
the hideous clown gets top billing
the monster as the headline act
your horror gets a walk on part
your mourning cries are extras
your fury is the chorus line
your humanity the supporting cast
while justice waits in the wings
while justice waits in the wings
while justice waits.
Donate:
Poetry and books and tour dates:
Out now: With Love, Grief and Fury
Out now: Springfield Road
Out now: Pessimism is for Lightweights
Out now: Mrs Death Misses Death
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/salenagodden
*ps: apologies for setting of the poem, I haven’t figured out how to make spaces in-between poetry verses on substack yet!? xxsg
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