Revolution

You say you want a revolution, well you know, we all want to change the world.

Revolution #1, John Lennon, 1968.

The revolution failed in 1968.

The students of Prague, Chicago, West Berlin,

Paris, Mexico City, Madrid and other such places,

yearning, as they were, for a more just and true society,

gave it a fair shake,

but they were up against an indescribable behemoth.

In Luke’s gospel, the child-woman Mary

was the unlikely harbinger of a revolution

in which the powerful

were to be brought down from their thrones

and the lowly lifted up: Vive la revolution!
It was left to her son
and his assorted crew of fishermen and stirrers 
to make the running, to protest the injustice

of power, greed and wealth,

among other things, in his own day.

His revolution failed, too,

but it gave rise to a movement that never quite died.

These insurgents achieved the occasional small victory,

but have not yet realised their lofty goals,

even after two millennia.

The demons continue mighty, powerful and fierce;

having added to their toolbox

of cunning and treacherous devices,

these fearsome powers go undetected and unnamed.

Still there remain a defiant few

who have not bent the knee before the gods

of capital, greed and comfort;

a vestigial company, marked by love,

that sees beyond the shining lights

and the glistening lies.

They form a tenacious remnant,

and hold tightly to outrageous dreams,

determined to maintain their revolutionary fervour.

They refuse to surrender to despair;

they will not abandon hope.

© Ken Rookes 2012