Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
From the Sydney Writers Festival to London, Adelaide Fringe to Barcelona, Candy Royalle has been performing her inimitable brand of Performance Poetry to critical acclaim. Using soundscapes and theatrics to bring her work to life, yet remaining true to the written word, she weaves tales and prose in a truly unforgettable way.
Candy’s Poem
Disjointed
There is never a single story
though this is what is being told
there is never a single angle
I thought this truth
to be ages old
those who can’t understand
that a curtain has been drawn
must not see
the false lies being fed
obvious to us
the last bastions of humanity
This curtain is one of iron
Through which we must peep
We are eyes
which seek
Too adept at tapping into vanities
irises expanding over fantasies
with selective blinkers
that help us
glaze over the casualties.
This is not so easy for me
For I was baptised
anointed in the ointment
of at least half the worlds hurting
My skin glistens with a moisture
I can not shake off
like some wet dog
so how can others
think only in the form of the prescribed
I have been waiting for that catastrophe
that would open closed eyes
and it came
way before those two towers
imploded then collapsed upon a city
sleeping on top of its jewels
in the crown of all that was
wrong with a western super power
and it went
forgotten like the lives
lost in previous times
where the same lies were used
to sell stories about
other powers committing abuse
and it came way before
another arab country was stormed
and it went
out with the racist jokes
which have become the norm
for those in whom hatred chokes
And like the shores of a sea
being pounded daily
where it is so used to this sensation
it doesn’t even notice the beating
it is constantly receiving
we have become used
to the rhythm of bloodshed
candidly declaring our support
of whomever sheds the least
is the better beast.
I can not believe in this new reality
where better the devil you know
and the lesser of two evils
has become the status quo.
And so
I recognise that I am a single finger.
Solitary and useless as a weapon
for I will not join four more to become a fist.
I will not join four more to be the fist
which punches air in victory
celebrating death, our morbid victor
I am a single finger
Not interested in joining the hand
that would require it for a trigger
I am a single finger
who would only join four more
to be one of the fists
that beats upon the breast
of the mourner
in empathy
mourning a grief
so foreign to us so free
I am a single finger
only interested in joining the hand
that would require it to wield the pen
that pens these words
in the hope that you will see
for I wish not to use this finger
to point accusingly
and instead would like to be the finger
which presses up against lips too
quick to spit untruths against lives already broken
begging for thoughts to be re formed before being spoken
Yes
Let it be known
that this finger exists
only to be pricked
to show that the colour of my blood
matches yours
so you can see
our life force
is resplendent in its similarity
And yes
let is be known that this finger
is directly connected to
feet which wish not to run in fear
but dance to the drum beat of freedom
tapping out a rhythm
similar to ammunition exploding
similar to artillery in arteries
sending messages to a brain
firing on all cylinders
and unafraid to ask the important questions
Yes, let it be known
that this finger will cross this heart
and hope to die
as a promise to all who stand here
that I will never be tainted by those
who know only how to hate.
