Songs of Resilience
and Experience
What happened when KidsCo
met Tigers
lawman, lawman
TIGER DNA
’King
world on fire
question marks
A Blake SocietyProduction
A visual and poetic response to the day when children from Kids Company read
William Blake’s poem ‘The Tyger’ to a tiger at London Zoo
Tiger DNA
Text by Rod Tweedy
Tiger DNA
they say
we’re made
from distant stars.
those stars glow in my raging eyes,
o tiger of the midnight skies,
my eyes are sirens on the street
are furnaces of flame
and at night I cannot sleep
I turn this thought within my brain
does what drive the tiger
drive us all?
does what make him mad
make me?
!
!
!
they say
we’re made
in shape of God
is that why
i have to fight and knife
to make my way?
they say
that I did wrong
to take him out
but I say DNA,
I’m what you made
you crazy world
I’m the terror that you seek.
I’m the terror that you need.
they say
“does what drive the tiger
drive us all?
does what make him mad
make me?”
in the night
i only hear the sound of hunger.
scratching like them mice
beyond the covers
i ain’t got light here in the night
my mums went out when i was born
and aint been on again
i lie in bed at night and watch
the strips of light swerve round the room
like headlights bending round my brain
they come and go and come again
o god i cant take much more of this.
where is my sis? where is the ones
i’m meant to miss. i don’t care
that they don’t care.
i’m only here
and the stripy lights that count the night for me.
entering
the mind
of the tiger
who made pain?
i feel it though nothings broke
who made the rage in me?
was i born with it?
or did the world
conjure it in me, twice its size
so I can take it on?
what makes me murder
everyone with just some pills.
tiger tiger
tigerstarter
tiger
fire
fire starter
rage
in me
rage
in me
like gasoline
like
gasoline
tiger
tiger
tiger
tiger
make
me
bleed
make
give me
my bleed
skin
give
my
your sweetskin
relief
yourtiger
sweet
relief
tiger
tiger
you tiger
fucked
me up
fucked
up
and you
down
and inme
between
and down
andtiger
in between
o tiger
oi could
tiger tiger
kill
i could
if i could
live kill
with me
if i could live with me
“the tiger that protects me”
21st Century Tiger
‘Did he who made the Lamb make thee?’
I’m afraid of the tiger that protects me.
the tiger seems to live beyond my law
and in my blood,
waiting, crouching, never sleeping
a word of yours could make him strike
your lips would bleed, and my exhilaration
tear your hopes apart
it holds knives, my tiger, it holds lives
don’t mess with my tiger or me
in the middle of the open night
it runs riot like a bus on fire
through my home town burning bright! !
punching through a thousand windows
and one of them is you,
who left me like a shoe
tiger tiger rescue me
i’ll never win with you in me.
o tiger tiger, tiger tiger
’king
he look calm he look serene
but he’s a killer underneath
sittin on his jungle throne
an emblem of his all alone!!
!
!
‘is crown is made from livin flesh
n all those he’s sent to early death
da small of victims on his breath
the psychopathic lords of Us
still rule dis London’s jungle town
‘is words are Law in Westminster
enforced with force of course
‘n please brutality
and on his lawns stand statues
of the things he loves:
stone tigers, lions, jaguars reflecting back the predators ! !
of his mad stare
psycho, psycho, watching Us,
your days are numbered,
your laws are dust;
psycho psycho it’s gettin late
you’re past your sell-by date I think
it’s time for you to be extinct
now
!
QUESTIONMARKS
questions mark
YOU TALKIN TO ME?
HOW OLD ARE YOU?
U HAVE A LICENSE FOR THAT?
WHAT YOU LOOKING FOR?
DID YOU DO THAT?
YOU WANT A PIECE OF THIS?
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
WHY ME?
There are 13 question marks in Blake’s original Tyger poem
world on fire
He came at first at night
a falling star expanding into light
a troubled world of glowing balls
and cooling rocks, that’s all
but He gave birth to me.
Me, a tiny seed, a fragment
of a cosmic sheet
burning day and night
as He forged galaxies, riveted by laws
and sealed by fire,
when pride turned love to hate
I self-enclosed in fury
and now my mind’s a glowing rock
hurtling through space and ice,
an h-bomb in the sulphur sky
this world’s on fire and me with it
god help me
I’m not here
lawman, lawman, chasing me
through
the streets
of chasing
East 13 me
lawman,
lawman,
through
the
streets
of East 13
Why you set
your
sights
to stun?
Why Why
you think
crime
you
can to
outrun?
you set
your
sights
stun?
Why you think crime you can outrun?
What mere prison or what mere cell
can contain
my endless
hell?mere cell
What mere
prisoninner
or what
can contain my endless inner hell? WhatWhat
dreaddread
laws and
dreaddread
chainschains
lawswhat
and what
Can quell
this furnace
in myinbrain?
Can quell
this furnace
my brain?
lawman,
lawman,
chasing
me me
lawman,
lawman,
chasing
through
the streets
of S.E.3,
through
the streets
of S.E.3,
Why Why
you set
sightssights
to stun?
youyour
set your
to stun?
Why Why
you think
crimecrime
you can
you think
yououtrun?
can outrun?
© rod tweedy
golgonooza
2014