May 2019
I met you for the first time
Rather unexpectedly
On a Thursday night
An upstairs gig in town
Hadn't been in quite some while
And you, no never before
I arrive before the show
A lone man and concertina
Play a weeping lament
For the lost children of Aran
And the hopes they carried
To the devil of a western sea
It was standing room only
Save a few lonely seats
At occupied and chattering tables
For which i dared not tread
So I slunk to the shadows
To a half wall
Left side of the bar
And watched it all
As another now enters
I swear he's wearing my coat
He's younger but shorter than me
My soul knows that i wear it better
Yet it is he that unifies tables
That I but watch from afar
As introductions are made
Strangers transform
To like minded souls
No more lonely seats remain
Only lonely half walls
And half sentences of the mind
As once again,
I don't want to be
Who it is
I am left to be
Of who it is
I am meant to be
The show commences
And it does not take long
For the singer to introduce you
Through words and through song
Violet Gibson as Irish as can be
But it is to Rome
In a year long gone
That you go
To leave your mark
And to a fascist dictator
You fired your shot
Grazing Mussolini's' miserable snout
You aimed to ****
But it was not your day
As the crowds howl
They lead you away
Mad as a box of frogs and old rags
That is what they say
As they expel you back
To dear old blighty
Our old colonial foe
Not ten years since
Your country rose to be free
You find yourself back
Incarcerated in an asylum
For life and for death
A window
A blackbird
A rose garden
All that you are left to possess
For you never get to go free
Unrepentant and unbowed
A violet not a rose
As once again,
You remain steadfastly proud
Of who it is
You were left to be
Who it is
You were meant to be
Rather unexpectedly
On a Thursday night
An upstairs gig in town
Hadn't been in quite some while
And you, no never before
I arrive before the show
A lone man and concertina
Play a weeping lament
For the lost children of Aran
And the hopes they carried
To the devil of a western sea
It was standing room only
Save a few lonely seats
At occupied and chattering tables
For which i dared not tread
So I slunk to the shadows
To a half wall
Left side of the bar
And watched it all
As another now enters
I swear he's wearing my coat
He's younger but shorter than me
My soul knows that i wear it better
Yet it is he that unifies tables
That I but watch from afar
As introductions are made
Strangers transform
To like minded souls
No more lonely seats remain
Only lonely half walls
And half sentences of the mind
As once again,
I don't want to be
Who it is
I am left to be
Of who it is
I am meant to be
The show commences
And it does not take long
For the singer to introduce you
Through words and through song
Violet Gibson as Irish as can be
But it is to Rome
In a year long gone
That you go
To leave your mark
And to a fascist dictator
You fired your shot
Grazing Mussolini's' miserable snout
You aimed to ****
But it was not your day
As the crowds howl
They lead you away
Mad as a box of frogs and old rags
That is what they say
As they expel you back
To dear old blighty
Our old colonial foe
Not ten years since
Your country rose to be free
You find yourself back
Incarcerated in an asylum
For life and for death
A window
A blackbird
A rose garden
All that you are left to possess
For you never get to go free
Unrepentant and unbowed
A violet not a rose
As once again,
You remain steadfastly proud
Of who it is
You were left to be
Who it is
You were meant to be
Violet Gibson was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1876. On 7 April 1926, Gibson shot Mussolini, Italy's Fascist leader, as he walked among the crowd in the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome. Gibson had armed herself with a rock to break Mussolini's car window if necessary, and a Modèle 1892 revolver disguised in a black shawl. She fired once, but Mussolini moved his head at that moment and the shot hit his nose; she tried again, but the gun misfired. She was almost lynched on the spot by an angry mob, but police intervened and took her away for questioning. Mussolini was wounded only slightly, dismissing his injury as "a mere trifle". At the time of the assassination attempt she was almost fifty years old and did not explain her reasons for trying to assassinate Mussolini. It has been theorised that Gibson was insane at the time of the attack. She was later deported to Britain after being released without charge at the request of Mussolini. She spent the rest of her life in a mental asylum, St Andrew's Hospital in Northampton.
