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
