People Power

I was thinking this morning how everything is being shaken up this year, perhaps 2012 really is the end of something, not the world exactly but perhaps the world as we have always known, accepted or tolerated it.   What is it that they say? You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs?

People's faith has been shattered in so many elements of our society that should be respected and relied upon: bankers, politicians, journalists etc and today of course we are shocked to hear more about the actions of some of the police in this country.  Deception, cruelty and corruption seem to be the order of the day and it almost reminds me of Stalin's Russia.

I have put up a song in a previous post - Read All About It sung by Emile Sande, (she sung it at the Olympics closing ceremony). The words are quite appropriate for our times.

I also found this poem The Justice Bell  online today; it was written ten years ago and it is for all those families who have been deceived and their loved ones vilified. The people of Liverpool have always been special -  fighters who will never give up whether  fighting for their loved ones or for justice, or for both -  after all there are many Irish genes in their blood.

The justice bell has started to toll, I hope it never stops ringing from now on.

The Justice Bell



A schoolboy holds a leather ball
in a photograph on a bedroom wall
the bed is made, the curtains drawn
as silence greets the break of dawn.

The dusk gives way to morning light
revealing shades of red and white
, which hang from posters locked in time
of the Liverpool team of 89.

Upon a pale white quilted sheet
a football kit is folded neat
with a yellow scarf, trimmed with red
and some football boots beside the bed.

In hope, the room awakes each day
to see the boy who used to play
but once again it wakes alone
for this young boy’s not coming home.

Outside, the springtime fills the air
the smell of life is everywhere
viola’s bloom and tulips grow
while daffodils dance heel to toe.

These should have been such special times
for a boy who’d now be in his prime
but spring forever turned to grey
in the Yorkshire sun, one April day.

The clock was locked on 3.06
as sun shone down upon the pitch
lighting up faces etched in pain
as death descended on Leppings Lane.

Between the bars an arm is raised
amidst a human tidal wave
a young hand yearning to be saved
grows weak inside this deathly cage.

A boy not barely in his teens
is lost amongst the dying screams
a body too frail to fight for breath
is drowned below a sea of death

His outstretched arm then disappears
to signal thirteen years of tears
as 96 souls of those who fell
await the toll of the justice bell.

Ever since that disastrous day
a vision often comes my way
I reach and grab his outstretched arm
then pull him up away from harm.

We both embrace with tear-filled eyes
I then awake to realise
it’s the same old dream I have each week
as I quietly cry myself to sleep.

On April the 15th every year
when all is calm and skies are clear
beneath a glowing Yorkshire moon
a lone scots piper plays a tune.

The tune rings out the justice cause
then blows due west across the moors
it passes by the eternal flame
then engulfs a young boys picture frame.

His room is as it was that day
for thirteen years it’s stayed that way
untouched and frozen forever in time
since that tragic day in 89.

And as it plays its haunting sound
tears are heard from miles around
they’re tears from families of those who fell
awaiting the toll of the justice bell.


© Dave Kirby 2002