Praise to the People

Praise to the people!

Praise to the Doctor saving lives as barrels of terror are thrown down from above,
Indiscriminately, relentlessly, without remorse,
He's a Doctor, an engineer, a politician, a pastor, a leader,
It's 3am before he gets his first sip of coffee.

Praise to the man fighting poverty with paper, as he removes another child from the jaws of a predator,
Tonight they will sleep,
Tonight they will sleep on a mattress,
Tonight they will be taught how to sleep beneath the sheets.

Praise to the sportsman, who can't flee his country for fear of the pain he leaves for his Mother,
Praise to the sportsman who fled his country, leaving his Mother to take pills from a brown broken bottle, but buying a future for his one loving daughter.

Praise to the Mother looking for a home away from the beach,
Away from the reach and the screech of the gunships,
Away from the police station for fear of mortars,
Away from the rebels with their rockets of freedom,
All she wants is a home for her kids,
Everyone deserves a home for their kids.

Praise to the lawyer, saving death row kids from the executioners bullet,
6 or 7 hundred slain, and he sleeps well at night.
Praise to the surgeon, bringing beauty to the masses through the cut of his knife,
Everyone has the right to be beautiful.

Praise to the filmmakers, telling stories of hope, reality and truth, whilst they are tracked by the target of a snipers gun,
To the man making movies under the face of the taliban, in the name of his 8 fallen friends,
Praise to the woman ordering policemen closer into shot on her latest film, whilst her name is scribed deeply on the next murderous list

Praise to the men wearing iron jackets and hats, as they speed to the scene on the next broken street to remove a wire from a phone,
Hoping that the call's not for them,
Praise to the man who took the call, and no longer walks on 2 feet,
Praise to his children who look upon their Father with pity and shame as their plates remain empty for another day,
Praise to his Mother, who rocks from side to side, covered in black, with dark, sunken eyes.

Praise to the cook, who keeps his doors open, despite the vile intrusion of an explosive stranger,
5 coats of emulsion cover the ceiling and their bitter remains,
Plates full of resistance and pans full of determination,
His door is open, once again.

It's a mad world full of wonderful people

Praise to the people!

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Listen to the musical version at: https://soundcloud.com/martinos74/praise-to-the-people-with

London, England, October 2013