George Wielgus: Inside-Outsiders

Inside-Outsiders
by George Wielgus

Whatever happened to individuality?
Whatever happened to idiosyncracy?
Whatever happened to unity? Unity? Unity?
Whatever happened to you and me?

There’s a war going on in Batu Arang
There’s a war in the Bukit Bintang
There’s a war going on in Chow Kit, Brickfields
There’s a war going down your street
From the KLCC to the Damansara Heights
From PJ to Puchong to Ipoh
Port Klang, Melaka, Penang, JB
There’s a war in your kampong scene

You need to get up, get alive and get free
What you see on your TV is not reality
Camera cannot capture a conscious duality
Liberation
I express through creativity.

In a society where art is a travesty
Self-expression denied with screams of death to originality
A championing of bland, oppressive banality
Of musical theatre and brash commerciality
I fear the seductive lure of mediocrity
And self-censorship, where you don’t say what you think
(Muffled) People here acting like their shit don’t stink.

I call up warriors of words to combat this depravity
Because word sound have power, charged with liberty
Literary emancipators, the inside-outsiders
Introverted heroes of rhythm and rhyme
Extrovert to reconstruct our world with a freedom cry.

There’s a war going on all across the globe
You fighting in that war as you crossing the road
The war is for your thoughts, your mind, your desire
From the moment you born to the time you expire
How you gonna get-de-get-de-get-get free?
Buh-buh-buh-buh-break your mental captivity?
For me-me-me-me-me the answer’s plain to see
You gottagot to think, you got to write, right?
Conjure lexical spells to challenge lies and hype
Thinking free and feeling fast
Combat dead futures by remembering past.

There’s a war going on in London Town
Brazil, India, China, Japan
All across the globe from shore to shore
Whose side you on in the cultural war?

Here is the time you find creative revolution
Artists, poets, addicts in a new art evolution
You can’t see us; we throwing cultural bombs
Art-terrorists, wailing freedom songs!
Storming the barricades of your mind-wipe galleries,
By chanting poems we burn-up those lethargic calories.
Fighting fit, mentally clear
Overcoming the little death of fear.
Guerillas of thought in the jungles of your apathy
Cathartic expression changing lives subliminally.

You see our words is weapons
A poem is an army
A poet is an ideology.
Freedom fighters of the mind, born to defy
Heart warriors and disciples of Hakim Bey
The inside-outsiders, we are many not few
Living amongst you
But never of you

End.

note: George sent this over to us a few weeks ago, he describes himself as “a localiving matsalleh dubpoet” and he’ll be featured on the upcoming “KL poet slam 2008”.