Dedicated to my Mum, My Nans, My Aunties, my sister, my cousins and all my female friends. I salute you all.
A Heroine Addiction
I have an addiction to the heroine.
My mum for one,
And Jessica 6 from Logan’s Run,
And my working class, World War two
Nan and all the women
Of her generation who kept it
All together throughout the general
Strike and the depression. Then
Put all their efforts into having a
Country to run as all the men
Were pitchforked into fighting Nazism.
Yeah, I’m addicted to heroines,
Not those who marry Princes and
Kings, but those who do real things.
Okay, Jessica 6 is from fiction but
In that film she was part of my young
And very real sexual awakenings.
And I’d rather hold her up as fantasy
Than fall in to a tabloid trap which
Makes heroines out of so called stars
Of TV shows dubbed as ‘reality’.
Yeah, I’ve got a heroine addiction.
I’ve said it before but am happy to repeat
My heroine number one is my mum.
One of those women who go through their lives
With their songs unsung, picking up socks
And towels and the pieces, Sorting
Out problems and ironing in creases.
Yeah, I’m addicted to heroines,
All those ones who went to gaol
And endured feeding tubes forced down
Their throats because they fought
To have the right to vote. All those
Miners’ wives who changed their lives
Because of a stubborn refusal to let
Their communities die without a fight.
All those women at Greenham Common,
Living in squalor to protest the horror
Of the nuclear bomb.
I’ve got a heroine addiction;
I’m addicted to those who provoked a fuss
Because of where they sat on a bus.
Those who listened to the World Service on the BBC whilst enduring
House arrest for having the audacity to protest.
Dagenham ladies who went on strike for equal pay,
Those who are still fighting to have their say
And those who just get on with their lives
As Mothers and Grandmothers and wives.
Yeah, I’ve got a heroine addiction and
I don’t ever want to be clean.
©Robert Hill 2012
