Covenant Against Violence

So you march one day, with candles, in black Held hands, silence stained, in human chain To protest savage rapes and the gun attack You make famous, the idiots and the insane And when the crowd dissolved truth left bare Mothers went home to hide still a wicked child The predator hidden from a nation's sad fear We make each silence time's forest for the wild And when the crowd dissolves into the thin air Of insecurity, the village shivering shrunk away Before the ugly we wrapped the timid dry tear In pretty paper of smiles, beseeching for the day I will not march flattering while truth is defied In a savage world, I yield innocence to none Work truth, Justice long delayed is justice denied Apologies too long, an imposter, has had its run I want my country back again, very brave! I want My children laughing, late hours still, in the streets I want doors opened, like hearts, to hear the chant Across fences, familiar love where each voice meets I want the inept, corrupt, law agents purged anew And this sudden material greed abate and poverty Like a school teach us fresh what none before knew How to survive, the culture founded from creativity. I want to walk at nights fearless on crime free shores And taste salt without the taint of blood on the winds I want for love to pour out its treasure that reassures Poverty is a tragedy only for the timid; here hope begins O Jamaica, I want you, still happy as you were before We had friendships deep, and everything no problem Because we shared. Let us die this good way, endue Against the beast! Let us rout his demonic strategem I will not march one day black to placate indifferent men How can I sleep in peace, victims are multiplied each night! I cannot look at blood and wear black, to cover it again The pain stinks here! Who shield rabid fiends from the light? I will march yes, march on the grave of crime and graft I will march yes, march with the coffin of monsters done And I will wear black again when my skin in sun can laugh I will wear black when is silent the bellow of the angry gun.