Performance Live: Kate Tempest

Ladies and gentlemen, this broadcast contains

some extremely strong language and explicit poetry.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello, everybody. Welcome.

Thank you for coming.

My name's Kate.

This is a very special night for me

for a couple of reasons I'm going to tell you about.

First of all, we're in the Rivoli Ballroom,

which is in my beloved Brockley in south-east London, where...

APPLAUSE Yeah.

Where me, my drummer and brother Craig Bass,

and a good chunk of this room have lived all our days,

so it feels extremely special to be here, where we are from,

with all you guys in this particularly beautiful venue.

Tonight is a night of poetry

on prime-time BBC Two television on a Saturday night,

which is massive and really exciting.

So as kind of cloying and trite as it sounds,

I kind of want to thank the BBC for taking this risk

and for allowing me to tell the particular story

that I want to tell.

This new work of mine, which is called Let Them Eat Chaos,

it's a long poem set to music.

I can't wait.

I've been waiting for this day for a long time.

Then, afterwards, I'm going to present some of my favourite poets.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is Let Them Eat Chaos.

Picture a vacuum

An endless and unmoving blackness

Peace - or the absence, at least, of terror

Now, see, in amongst all this space

That speck of light in the furthest corner

Gold as a pharaoh's coffin

Now follow that light with your tired eyes

It's been a long day, I know

But, look, watch as it flickers

And then roars into fullness and fills the whole frame

Blazing a fire you can't bear

The majesty of

Here is our sun

And see how the planets are dangled around it

And held in that intricate dance

There is our earth, our earth

Its blueness soothes the sharp burn in your eyes

Its contours remind you of love, that soft roundness

The comfort of ocean and landmass

Picture the world

Older than she ever thought she would get

She watches herself as she spins

Arms loaded with the trophies of her most successful child

The pylons and mines

The power plants shimmer in her still, cool breath

Now, is that a smile that plays across her lips?

Or is it the tremor of dread, the sadness of mothers

As they watch the fates of their children unfold?

In, now, in, kaleidoscopic vision

The colours like drugs in your belly, churning

Your skin pulled loose as a pup's, shaken and flattened

And the waves are magnified as they roll up towards you

And you're tiny as sand

Just a speck

And as you approach the surface

All of that peace that you felt is replaced with this furious

Never-known passion

You're feeling the people, their faces are bright in your blood

You are feeling

You want to be close to them

Closer

Because these are your species

Your kindred

Where have you landed?

Uncurl yourself

Stand up and look at your limbs, all intact

Clothed in the fashion

This is a city

Let's call her London

And these are the only times you have known

"Is this what it's come to?", you think

What am I to make of all this?

ELECTRONIC BEAT PLAYS

# At any given moment in the middle of a city

# There's a million epiphanies occurring

# In the blurring of the world beyond the curtain

# And the world within the person there's a quivering

# The litter in the alleyway is singing

# People meet by chance, fall in love, drift apart again

# Under-age drinkers walk the park and watch the dark descend

# The workers watch their clocks

# Fiddle with their Parker pens

# While their grandmothers haggle with the market men

# Here is where the kids play and laugh until they fall apart

# It's kiss chase and dancing

# Till it's mistakes and darkened rooms

# Too fast, too soon, too slow, too long

# We move around all day but we can't move on

# Is anybody else awake?

# Will it ever be day again?

# Is anybody else awake?

# Will it ever be day again?

# Overflowing plant pots, fetched post, decorated door numbers

# Motorbike beneath a tarp, beaten-up Punto

# Goalposts painted on them green garage doors

# There's a rainbow on that wheelie bin

# There's stickers in that window

# Smart flats, rough flats, can't get enough cat flaps

# You know, 17 cat flaps

# Rich flats, broke flats, new flats, old flats

# Luxury bespoke flats

# And "this has got to be a joke" flats

# Pensioners, toddlers, immigrants and Englishmen

# Family with six kids, single businesswoman

# Everybody's here trying to make or scrape a living

# The fox freezes on the alley wall and stands still, sniffing

# Bare branches sway in the front gardens

# The lion's mouth doorknocker flaps in the breeze

# Streetlights glint on the "beware of the dog" sign

# Beer cans and crisp packets dance with the dead leaves

# It's 4:18am

# At this very moment on this very street

# Seven different people in seven different flats

# Are wide awake, they can't sleep

# Now, of all these people in all these houses

# Only these seven are awake

# They shiver in the middle of the night

# Counting their sheepish mistakes

# Is anybody else awake?

# Will it ever be day again?

# Is anybody else awake?

# Will it ever be day again? #

Now, we start on the corner with our back to the wall

Next to the old phone box, where the tramp leaves his bedding

The road runs ahead of you

There's houses and flats either side

Walk down it

Go past the yard with the caravans, there behind the hedges

Now look here, in the house opposite

Black gate post with a concrete frog squatting on top of it

Through the hallway, ancient wallpaper, nicotine gold

Up the stairs, rickety, loaded with history

Here, in the top flat, flowers in the windowsill

Little breeze fluttering the petals

As they stare out at the city streets

Gemma is awake.

What woke her? Open eyes

Streetlights float slowly through broken blinds

She watches the shadows play across her tattered carpet

And she holds herself tight in the room's half-darkness

It's cold

She wedges her hands underneath her armpits

It's 4:18 and Gemma's thinking.

# Before I was a adult I was a little wreck

# Peddling whatever I could get my grubby mitts on

# Ketamine for breakfast, bad girls for drinking with

# I gave them puppy dog eyes for the acid on their fingertips

# Heads in the face bin, lips without faces getting facety

# Half-baked in a bakery eating pastries

# Desperate for a body who can save me

# But I never really wanted what they gave me

# Always wanted something else, sweating in the dole queue

# Spitting like a villain in a pantomime, old shoes, bad teeth

# Drinking in the rain with my ghost

# Sitting in the back of the class, comatose

# Villains on my back in the dark hold me close

# But you're never held

# I did some things I swore I'd never tell

# That night you tried to kill me

# Run me down with your car in the snow

# I didn't realise how far you would go

# Every day I've lived

# Lives in the day I wake up and my dreams are all screaming

# I'm fucked but I'm fine now

# Something remains, you're still pulling me

# Yes, my future is bright but my past's trying to ruin me

# Tried to change it but I know

# If you're good to me I will let you go

# Tried to fight it but I'm sure

# If you're bad to me I will like you more

# Saw some things when I was young that made me who I would become

# I feel them with me every day because if you try and run away

# Run beside you pace for pace Trip you up and drag your face

# Through the mud of every wasted chance and every bitter taste

# My heart is sprayed up with the names of all my friends

# Who lost their way Doesn't change, it all remains

# It takes your strength and gives you shame

# All I want is someone great to make me everything I ain't

# But the only ones for me are the ones that shouldn't be

# Even though I'm doing good, I'm working hard, my work is strong

# Might be fine just for a while to go out when my heart is raw

# Reach myself through emptiness and push my body close

# To anybody who can recognise the presence of my ghost

# Try to change it but I know

# If you're good to me I will let you go

# Try to fight it but I'm sure

# If you're bad to me I will like you more

# Try to change it but I know

# If you're good to me I will let you go

# Try to fight it but I'm sure

# If you're bad to me I will like you more. #

Now, in the basement flat

By the garages where the people dump their mattresses

Esther is in her kitchen making sandwiches

The slats on her blinds are all wonky and skewed

You can see the top of her head from the street

Before she moves out of view to kick her boots off, tired feet

She wipes her forehead with her wrist

She's just back from a double shift

Esther's is a carer doing nights

Behind her, on the kitchen wall, is a black and white image

Of swallows in flight

Her eyes are sore, her muscles ache

She cracks a beer and swigs it

She holds it to her thirsty lips and necks it till it's finished

It's 4:18am again

Her brain is full from all she's done that day

She knows that she won't sleep a wink before the sun is on its way

Esther's worried about the world tonight

She's worried all the time

In fact, she don't know how she's supposed to put it from her mind.

HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYS

# Europe is lost

# America, lost

# London, lost

# Still we are clamouring victory

# All that is meaningless rules

# We have learnt nothing from history

# The people are dead in their lifetimes

# Dazed in the shine of the streets

# But look at that traffic still moving

# The system's too slick to stop working

# Business is good and there's bands every night in the pubs

# There's 2-4-1 drinks in the clubs

# Yeah, we scrubbed up well

# Washed off the work and the stress

# Now all we want is some excess

# Better yet, a night to remember that we'll soon forget

# All of the blood that was bled for these cities to grow

# All of the bodies that fell

# The roots that were dug from this earth

# So these games could be played

# I see it tonight in the stains on my hands

# The buildings are screaming

# I can't ask for help here

# Nobody knows me

# Hostile, worried, lonely, we move in our packs

# And these are the rights we were born to

# Working and working so we can be all that we want

# Then dancing the drudgery off

# But even the drugs have got boring

# Well, sex is still good when you get it

# To sleep, to dream to keep the dream in reach

# To each a dream

# Don't weep, don't scream

# Just keep it in

# Keep sleeping in

# What am I going to do to wake up?

# I feel the cost of it pushing my body

# Like I push me hands into pockets so softly

# I walk and I see that this is all we deserve

# The wrongs of our past have resurfaced to spite all we did

# To vanquish the traces

# My very language is tainted

# With all that we stole to replace it with this

# I am quiet, feeling the onset of riot

# Riots are tiny, though systems are huge

# Traffic keeps moving, proving there's nothing to do. #

Cos it's big business, baby, and its smile is hideous

Top-down violence, structural viciousness

Your kids are dosed up on prescriptions and sedatives

Don't worry about that, mate, worry about the terrorists

I mean, the water level's rising, the water level's rising

The animals, the elephants, the polar bears are dying

Stop crying, start buying

What about the oil spill?

Shh, no-one likes a party-pooping spoilsport

Massacres, massacres, massacres, new shoes

Ghettoised children murdered in broad daylight

By those employed to protect them

Live porn streamed to your preteen's bedroom

Glass ceiling, no headroom

Half a generation live beneath the bread line

Oh, but it's happy hour on the high street

Friday night at last, lads, my treat

All went fine until that kid got glassed in the last bar

The place went nuts, you can ask our Lou

It was a madness

The road ran red, pure claret

Oh, and about them immigrants, I can't stand them

I mean, mostly, I mind my own business

They're only coming over here to get rich, it's a sickness

England! England!

Patriotism

And you wonder why kids want to die for religion

It goes work all your life for a pittance

Maybe you'll make it to manager, pray for a raise

Cross the beige days off on your beach babe calendar

The anarchists are desperate for something to smash

Scandalous pictures of fashionable rappers in glamorous magazines

I mean, who is dating who?

Political cash in an envelope

Caught snuffing lines off a prostitute's prosthetic tits

And it was back to the House of Lords with slapped wrists

They abduct kids

They fuck the heads of dead pigs

But him in a hoodie with a couple of spliffs

Jail him or deport him

It's the bored-of-it-all generation

The product of product placement and manipulation

Shoot them up, brutal duty of care

Come on, new shoes, beautiful hair

Bullshit saccharine ballads and selfies and selfies and selfies

Here's me outside the palace of me

Construct a self in psychosis

And meanwhile the people were dead in their droves

And nobody noticed

No, wait, somebody noticed

I can tell by the fucking emoji he posted.

# Sleep like a gloved hand covers our eyes. #

ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC, CHEERING

These nights are so nice and bright, so let's dream.

# But some of us are stuck like stones in a slow stream

# What am I going to do to wake up?

# We are lost, we are lost, we are lost. #

Are we lost? Are we lost?

We are lost

We are lots, we are lots

We are lost, we are lost, we are lost, we are lost

Are we lost?

We are lost, we are lost, we are lost

And still nothing will stop.

# Nothing pauses

# We have ambitions and friendships and courtships to think of

# Divorces to drink off

# The thought of money, the money, the oil

# The planet is shaking and spoiled

# Your life as a plaything, a drama to soil, the toil

# The toil, I mean, I can't see an ending at all

# Only the end

# Tell me how this is something to cherish

# When the tribesmen are dead in their deserts?

# To make room for alien structures

# Develop, develop

# Kill what you find if it threatens you

# No trace of love in the hunt for the bigger part

# Here in the land where nobody gives a fuck. #

Across the green, in the flat with the colourful curtains

Alicia's wrapped in her blanket

Head leant back on the wall, shaking and nervous

Gripping her knees, she's looking for purpose

Alicia keeps a brave face on all day long

But right now the brave face has gone

There was something in the changing season

That prickled in her skin all day

Sucked her back through time and left her feeling far away

He was in her dream

She hasn't dreamt of him for months

She's so tired, when she sleeps, she doesn't really dream at all

But there he was, holding his belly and he had blood on his shirt

She heard him scream her name

And then she saw him fall

Alicia wipes her face

She whispers to herself, "It was just a dream"

She sniffs and nods

She dries her eyes

She checks the time

It's 4:18.

# It's a strange thing

# You face seems to fade with the changing season

# For some reason it comes back more present than ever

# Not your face, really more a sense of you

# Even though I know what's happened

# It's no more comprehensible than if it was an abstract thing

# Someone's else's friend

# Are you asking me for something? Is there something I should do?

# This is hard on your mother, she lost your little brother, too

# Your sister is doing good

# She's smart, smart like you

# Finish her degree next year, try and find a job, I suppose

# She's got her head screwed on right

# You don't have to worry, but is there something else though?

# If there is, I'm sorry

# I can't really think what you might want from me

# I heard your voice so loud it woke me up

# I don't believe in ghosts

# Work's fine, life's good

# Tyler's nearly four now

# Smart enough to walk round and hear what I don't say

# The night it happened is vivid in my brain, it won't fade

# Life is long still

# Some things don't change

# Nice to fall in love again but that ain't going to happen soon

# I'm trying to get some money saved

# Fix up the living room

# I nearly got in trouble, I got angry with my manager

# There's this young girl who works with us

# He tried to put his hands on her

# It's such a waste, so many idiots alive and kicking

# Why they have to be the only sane man in town

# Probably only saying that because you're not around

# I'm keeping my chin up, though I don't let it get me down

# I heard your voice so loud it woke me up

# I don't believe in ghosts

# You're with me all the time

# I think I know you better

# Than I did when we was hanging out together

# What's it like where you've gone?

# It can feel it, it's OK I know you can't say

# You've been with me all day

# I have to tell you, when it happened

# I didn't cry for ages

# When it hit me, I fucking screamed

# Like a lion in a cage

# I fasted, didn't eat a thing for a week

# I just walked across the heath in the rain

# Spitting bars to the grass

# Listening to the cars skidding past

# I thought life would get more real or something more fast

# But it didn't

# When I look at your son, life's hidden

# Meanings come to the front of my vision

# It's weird, the way I see it right now is so strong

# I'd never have been the person I've become if you had never gone

# Everything's connected, right?

# Everything's connected, even if I can't read the signs

# Everything's a message

# We die so that others can be born

# We age so that others can be young

# The point of life is live, love, if you can and then pass it on

# We die so that others can be born

# We age so that others can be young

# The point of life is live, love, if you can

# And then pass it on. #

Who's this staggering home, jabbering

Looking like some street-smart arrogant gnome?

LAUGHTER

Feet sticking to the kerbs like javelins thrown

Gesturing wildly, having full-blown conversations with himself

Saying "Haven't you grown?" to his face in the windows

Grimacing, grappling with half a cigarette

Not managing

This is Pete

Pete grew up on this street

He moved away but is back living at his dad's so that he can save

Pete rigs stages at live events

Every time he gets paid, he gets wasted

And wakes up with less than he made and he hates it

But that's life, right?

Fast-paced, shit-faced and low-maintenance

All of his mates are kind of on the same page

You know, basic wages, takes ages to get through the month

But then payday comes and it's drinks all round

Outrageous behaviour living right now

No sense of later

Pills by the pocketful

Nights last days

Even if you never splashed out

Still couldn't make the rent on his own place

Face it

But now it's 4:18 and Pete's 14 doors from home

And his thoughts are like a pack of starving dogs

Fighting over the last bone.

ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYS

# No, no, no, no, yeah

# Anyway, what was I saying?

# Fuck it, mate

# Hold on, I'm coming up, wait.

# Good night, weren't it? It must have been

# Burned too much on the good stuff, lucky me

# I looked up and saw my future, revel in the lights

# Funny, innit? I'll have that sinking feeling any minute

# But you can't win a race unless you're running in it, right?

# Can't get a taste unless you've taken a bite

# I'm climbing up the walls Things are getting difficult

# It's all take, take, take I start early, work late

# I'm putting in the hours for these drug tokens

# Love's a joke when you're blood's pulsing

# Love is real when you start choking

# Doubled up and in the vast ocean

# Um, state of you, mate

# Basically, the way I was made

# You see, um, I've been getting on it since back in the days

# It's a good place for a bad time if you ask me

# Trust me, nothing gets past me

# Bad place for a good time if you know what I mean

# I never met no-one like you

# This feels like a dream

# Whoops, back here again

# How many times have I sworn it's the end?

# Whoops, I know this feeling

# Shovelling the rubbish till I'm staring at the ceiling

# Whoops, dancing to a shit tune

# Hands in the air when it hits you

# Whoops, I'm lying in my bed and my brain is eating my head

# I got these demons that I can't shake

# My past is a vast place, can't get away

# Life got grim back then, like it does

# Do you know how it feels to lose people you love?

# I like talking to you like this You want to come back?

# Couple drinks, something like that?

# I got a gram on my night stand I got an eighth of squidgy black

# I've got this feeling we're gonna be friends

# I've got this song, I want to play it to you

# I've got this dream, I'm gonna make it happen

# I've got this thing, I've got to say to you

# I've been writing poems, it's a thing that I do

# Would you mind if I shared one with you?

# Oh, of course not, sorry

# This time of night, I always end up spouting the same old shite

# It reminds me of this time I was trying to find my mind

# In the back of this rave

# This kid was spilling blood all over the place

# And I was looking out for someone to save or be saved by

# I found this paper plate, started writing

# It felt fucking great

# I knew then, me and the pen we were one and the same

# I can't take the strain of the days

# I'm pretty sure I'm halfway to insane

# You've got such a nice face and your eyes are like rain

# I'd try and kiss you if I could just remember your name

# Whoops, back here exposed

# I watch the state of my nose

# Whoops, my jaw's gone west

# And I've started getting pains in my chest

# Whoops, there goes my promise

# All it took was two drinks till I got on it

# Whoops, I swear this person isn't me

# But we had fun though, didn't we?

# Whoops, back here exposed

# Don't watch the state of my nose

# Whoops, my jaw's gone west

# And I've started getting pains in my chest

# Whoops, there goes my promise

# All it took was two drinks and I got on it

# Whoops, I swear this person isn't me

# We did have fun though, didn't we? #

Yeah?

Now, above Pete's head, as he fumbles with his key

The clouds get dark, start brawling

War games, ancient faces pushing each other around

The sky is changing

A foaming storm is coming

A growling mist, a howling downpour

But Pete don't see it

Pete's too busy trying to make his key fit

He can't quite get it right

Meanwhile, in their rooms, Alicia and Esther and Gemma

Are too concerned with their own thoughts to think about the weather

But we see the sky like furious ink

Thick liquid sinks and whips the wind

The pitch shifted, rumbles, screams from the swollen grin

There's a big storm rolling in

# We came from the four corners

# We are the raw waters of course

# The four Horsemen will drink from the water that pours

# We carry the river, the reservoir, the residue

# Rising waves, sea sprayed, the inevitable churn across

# Many voices in our vapours, we surge and gush

# We were steam in a distant heat

# We moved rapid over landscape, gathering speed

# Desert, land, city, forest and beach

# Heading for the people asleep, ready to bleed

# Unleash the torrents, come clean

# Carry many lessons, let the water teach

# But you'd better learn to swim or you'll get caught beneath

# Hard rain falling on all the half-hearted, half-formed

# Fast-walking, half-fury, half-bored and hard-talking

# Half-dead from exhaustion

# Hard-pushed but the puddles keep forming, don't fall in

# Some saw us in their tea leaves

# Some felt us in the knees

# Most left it to the weathermen

# To tell them there was nothing to see

# Now, you can play dumb and ignore for so long

# But we've been in the mountains, getting strong, we've seen you

# Filling up the sky with your fumes

# Sitting in your rooms like you are all that ever lived

# Heads down to the lives of the others in your towns

# Running from the rain like you've never been kissed

# Leave your possessions and funds

# Tell your friends that you've gone to make peace

# With the things you've never done

# Come, dance with the devil, you spill like the flood

# The weather vane swings, things will never change, single

# The money men who close their eyes

# And pretend that this rumble must be low planes, so strange

# Heart rate falling

# All the half-hearted, half-formed, fast-walking, half-fury

# Half-bored and hard-talking

# Half-dead from exhaustion

# Hard-pushed, but the puddles keep forming, don't fall in

# And they will run to the highest hill

# Consult the old books

# Ask the dead mystics for wisdom they don't trust

# The people will flock to the garages

# Stockpile canisters of gasoline, tinned fish and bandages

# Count the seconds between the thunder and lightning

# Scared of every other body running round frightened

# "Can't carry on like this" they will mutter

# Staring with disgust at the people weeping in the gutter

# Make no trouble, I play by the rules

# I work double shifts to get my kids through school

# But you were so focused on your own little part

# You went ploughing on blind in the dark, no heart

# We're not the dread storm that will end things

# But your playful gale-force friend in these end times

# Come to remind you you're not in island

# Life is much more than just borders

# But who can afford to think over the walls of this fortress?

# Of course it's important to provide roof and floorboards

# For you and yours and be secure in your fortunes

# You are more than the three or four you go to war for

# You are part of a people that need your support

# Whose work is it if it belongs to the corporates?

# The people are left on the doorstep, doors shut

# Nauseous and tortured by all that they lost

# It's a hard rain falling

# All the half-hearted, half-formed, fast-walking, half-fury

# Half-bored and hard-talking

# Half-dead from exhaustion

# Hard-pushed, but the puddles keep forming, don't fall in

# Hard rain falling

# All the half-hearted, half-formed, fast-walking, half-fury

# Half-bored and hard-talking

# Half-dead from exhaustion

# Hard-pushed, but the puddles keep forming, don't fall in. #

Now, on the second floor of the new build block

With the yellow door

Next to the boarded-up independent record store

Bradley is awake

Bradley watches notches on his clock face

Just lying there, thinking

Limbs like fallen buildings

Feeling like every day he's ever lived is out to kill him

Bradley's got a good job

He works in PR

He moved south a few months back

Top-whack flat, all mod-cons

Wall-sized windows

He's a Manchester boy done good in the big smoke

Young professional, single

Tinder and flings

Life seems simpler than it's ever been

He's doing well

He's living the dream and he's paying his mortgage off

Bradley doesn't know why he's not sleeping at nights

He could get up, try and walk it off

But he's got to get to work in a matter of hours

Is he awake or asleep? He can't tell

He can't dream, he can't feel

He can't scream

He just stares at the screen

It says 4:18

And life is just a thing he does

He rolls over

Cold pillow

Warm body

At the end of his tether at usual

He breathes softly

He burrows down deep and he closes his eyes

He thinks, "Man, is this really what it means to be alive?"

STEADY BEAT PLAYS

The days go past like pictures on a screen

Sometimes I feel like my life is someone's else's dream

Most days, I'm dazed, walking round and working, talking, perking up

But always feel I can't be certain that I've woken up at all

Is this life, will this pass?

This feeling that I'm looking at the world from behind glass

Even when I'm laughing hard or falling on my arse

Or half-plastered before it's even dark

Or when some hard bastard barges past

When I'm passing my targets at work

I can't shake the feeling that life hasn't started

It's worse in the evenings at parties, I'm standing apart

My heart's hard, I can't hardly be heard

Still I'm harping on, barking out words

Is this real? Is this what I'm doing?

I know I exist but I don't feel a thing

I'm eclipsed, I'm elsewhere

And the worst part is I don't think that I care.

# What am I going to do to wake up?

# I know it's happening but who's it happening to?

# Has this happened to you?

# I know it's happening but who is it happening to?

# Has this happened to you?

# I know it's happening but who's it happening to?

# Has this happened to you?

# I know it's happening but who is it happening to?

# Has this happened to you? #

I try new things

I shoot films on my phone and I play them back when I'm alone

Did that happen?

I walk around trying to understand every sound

Trying to make my feet connect with every inch of ground

The sky flattens, it battens me down

Everything is in its category, package and sell, flattering girls

But all reality is Battle Royale

Everyone's chattering, Nothing is real

Collect my salary, cooking a meal, rice and vegetables

I exercise regularly but how do I feel?

Whistle a melody

Is this all that's ahead of me?

I always thought that life would mean more to me eventually

I hate to think I'll make it to 70, potentially 75

Realise I've never been alive

Spend the rest of my days regretting

Wishing I could be forgetting.

# Yes, it's happening but who's it happening to?

# Has this happened to you?

# I know it's happening but who is it happening to?

# Has this happened to you?

# I know it's happening but who's it happening to?

# Has this happened to you?

# I know it's happening but who is it happening to?

# Has this happened? #

MUSIC INTENSIFIES

So, just two doors down from Bradley in the old broken-down house

With the ramshackle porch and the novelty doorbell

Zoe plays her music low

She's got a bottle on the go

Everything's in boxes, it's been a long night packing

She's got her clothes in black bin bags

And the Blu-Tack greases the paintwork

She's like, "What the fuck is this stuff?"

She got the road sign stolen from Quick Shag Street

Shirts and skirts, posters, CDs

Couple of comedy coasters, broken TV

There's the birthday card that her sister made

In the distant past when she turned 13

There's her hair stuff, her books

The love letters she can't bin

Outside, the night, inside is the last hurrah

She's got a limited edition Air Max 110s

Next to her Che Guevara bust

Complete with his ornamental glass cigar.

Now, for years, the landlord never fixed the shower

And the mould kept growing up the kitchen walls

He'll do it up nice now, sure, repaint it

He's tripled the rent

He's going to get it an' all

Zoe's only got a few hours left

To get her room all packed and clean

She goes to the window

She lights up a smoke

She looks down on her street

It's 4:18.

# The squat we used to party in

# Our flats we can't afford

# The dumps we did our dancing in

# Have all been restored

# Pints are up two quid

# The staff are beautiful and bored

# You think it's coming up round here

# It's falling on its sword

# It don't feel like home no more

# I don't speak the lingo

# Since when was this a winery?

# This used to be the bingo

# Man, I've walked these streets for all my life

# They know me like no other

# But the streets have changed

# I no longer feel them shudder

# All right, all right, I get the gist

# Whose city is this? It doesn't want to stumble

# I've had a glimpse into the future, it stinks

# London's a waterfall, all falling to bits

# If you fall short, you fall and you know where the door is

# Board up the broken, do it up, sell it back

# Make it bespoke It's all out in the open

# It's fine, man, hike the price right up

# You smile with your friends in the posh new nightclubs

# My streets have been dug up

# Repaved, new routes for commuters

# The landscape has changed I'm looking for the old grass

# The tags that once meant safe territory

# But every hieroglyph gets whitewashed eventually

# And so I'm moving on

# I mean, I've got it all to play for

# I'll be the invader

# In some other neighbourhood

# I'll be sipping perfect coffee

# Thinking, "This is pretty good."

# While the locals grit their teeth

# And hum, "Another fucking one has come."

# All I see is luxury tenements, "woe, begone" residents

# Raising heads, puffing on pleasure

# Everyone's reckoning, something is beckoning

# There's never a minute here, there's only for ever

# Towering tower blocks, scaffolding rattling

# The Tube is a battering ram full of passengers

# Smashing its way into town

# We are scavengers smashing around in the sludge for our sustenance

# Paradise, party life, pushing our shoulders into the mould

# Yes, we do what we're told

# We are Sisyphus pushing his boulder

# Yes, the kids are all right but the kids will get older

# The kids are all right but the kids will get older... #

Now, up the stairwell

Chip-fat grey and London green with damp

Out on the fifth floor where the wind hits your jaw

And locks you in its clamp

There is a red door bordered by mottled glass

And inside, a lighted lamp

Pius lives here. Pius is tired.

She can't sleep, she twitches, wired

Pius lies beside a sleeping body, a girl she barely knows

She met her in the pub and it went the way it goes

The girl's name is Rose

But Pius is lovesick for her Thorn

Her Thorn left her in the summer

And since then Pius thinks she can't get warm

She thinks she's carried her stuck in her side

Since the day that she was born

# As she dreamed of her and knew her shape

# Long before she saw her form... #

Now, it's 4:18.

Pius has been staring at the walls for hours

She tells herself it's all her fault

She doesn't love, she just devours.

# Can't sleep, so much to do

# Trying to get closer to you when you're so far away

# Trying to get hold of what's true

# And what's true isn't true when it's day

# Now, tell me, how can I sleep? Got so much to do

# Trying to get closer to you and you're so far away

# All that I say and I do are things that you do and you say

# How come I'm becoming the one that I'm running from?

# Hunted by the slur in my words in the pub

# Feeling nervous and overexcited, arms round the waist of a girl

# It might make it all right for a night

# Man, she takes me to pieces

# I lie beside her awake while she sleeps

# And I feel much closer to you than I felt when you were still here

# Spilling beer till you reappear

# I'm thinking of you

# And the things you do to me

# I'm thinking of you

# And the things you do to me

# Pain in my liver OK, shame, so much shame

# Can't bear my frame Can't bear your name

# OK, can't bear this game So let's play new rules

# Old rituals, guilt trip Heartstrings snap

# I want to, I can't go back It's too much

# Or is it not enough? I can't get your claws out my guts

# I'm thinking of you

# And the things you do to me

# I'm thinking of you

# And the things you do to me

# This is my mind, get out of it You didn't want it

# How come you're still hanging around in it?

# This is my body, let go of it You don't want it

# How come you're still fucking controlling it?

# This is my night, get lost in it This is my bridge, stop crossing it

# This is my face, stop smiling

# This is my space, you've been gone so long

# How come I still find you hiding?

# Fighting me I'm fighting my darkest parts

# I'm frightened, nightmares tighten

# My hands round my own throat

# Cos you're the snake charmer and I'm the old rope

# No hope, just go now Please, just leave

# Still in the air that I breathe I'm stranded

# Arms outstretched for a body Any body, here's a body

# But I wake up and I can't stand them

# I feel so grubby, don't want, can't stop, just love me

# Breath like a cigarette stuffed in the gutter

# Please, come close, don't wait Just don't touch me, it's ugly

# Wishing for a phone call Beep-beep

# Looking through names for the one who feels the most dangerous

# I can't believe you're in love again

# I can't open my heart to anybody but strangers

# I'm thinking of you

# And the things you do to me

# I'm thinking of you

# And the things you do to me

# I'm thinking of you

# And the things you do to me

# I'm thinking of

# The things you do to me. #

So here is our moment

Frozen

We have seen our seven unmoving in their lonely homes

It's been 4:18 and dawn still hours off yet

My God, and they are cold and listless

Not quite sure that they exist here, in this moment

Slow and viscous

Lips haunted by the ghost of kisses

There is the endless saturation of the days

And here they are

There is nothing moving but their breath

But I watch now as the breaking storm outside

Brings this moment into action

The sky cracks into a wild-mouthed grin

And unleashes all the water that its carried

Vapour grown heavy from every distant puddle

Every lapping wave tip

Every churning river contributing to this rain

Now, the lightning rips the sky in half

It charges through their bodies

And it startles every roof in stark relief

And our seven, they see their city new

So Pete on his doorstep, he looks up, mouth agape

He drops his keys in shock

And he laughs a howling, ancient laugh

Gemma sits bolt upright in bed and stares at the rain

As it smashes itself against her windows

Esther unleashes a strange bark into the silence of her kitchen

Zoe puts her boxes down

Bradley reaches for his dressing gown

Now, see it from above

Seven doors to seven flats open at the same time

And, like the raining pavement

Seven broken hearts

Seven empty faces heading out of doors

Here's our seven perfect strangers

And they see each other strangely dressed

One shoe and one slipper, socks falling off

Slowly at first, tentatively, but then unhunching their shoulders

Tipping their necks back

Opening their bodies to this rain

Their hair is slicked down against their heads

Or puffed up madly outwards

And their hands are slipping from their cheeks and chins

As they clutch their faces, open-mouthed

"Amazing!" they shout

"Have you seen it?" they shout

As they band closer, closer

Like children drawn towards the eye of a game

Shocked and laughing

Soaked to the skin.

# Indigenous apocalypse, decimated forest

# The winter of our discontent's upon us

# Desolate apostles slurping Strongbow at the crossroads

# We are nothing but an eating mouth

# Oesophagus colossal

# Won't stop until we've beaten down the planet into pellets

# Before the interstellar mission to reflect more terror

# It's killing me, it's killing me It's filling me, I'm vomiting

# It's still in me, everything is fine really, silly me

# Poor kids shot dead Poor kids locked up

# Poor kids saying, "This is the future that you left us?"

# Stocked-up lunch meat

# Processed punch from an unclean fat cat

# Tasty, tasty poison

# Carcinogenic, diabetic, asthmatic, epileptic, post-traumatic

# Bipolar and disaffected

# Atomised, thinking we're engaged when we're pacified

# Staring at the screen so we don't have to see the planet die

# What am I going to do to wake up?

# We sleep so deep, it don't matter how they shake us

# If we can't face it, we can't escape it

# But tonight the storm's come

# If we can't shake it, we can't escape it

# Tonight, the storm...

# She's screaming, she screaming

# The drone's turned her beautiful boy

# Into a pile of bones

# No body to bury, nobody is home

# Running from war, the boat's full

# The boat's sinking a mile offshore

# No beds in the hospitals, our minds are against us

# Imagine your daughter was gunned down, defenceless

# On her way to school, there'd be uproar

# But she's collateral damage, it never happened

# Now, if our kids are fine, that's enough for us

# You can't love into a vacuum, there's got to be a limit

# Welcome to the biggest crime that's ever been committed

# You think you and I are different kinds

# You're caught up in specifics

# You and I apart are much easier to limit

# The illusion's so complete

# It's impossible to bring it into focus

# Cinematic stock footage teaches people are locusts

# Uniformed men keep unleashing explosives

# Now what we going to do to wake up?

# We sleep so deep, it don't matter how they shake us

# If we can't face it, we can't escape it

# If I can't face it, if I can't face it. #

Tunnel vision, tunnel vision

Work drinks, heartbreak

I can't face the past, the past's a dark place

Can't sleep, can't wake

Sitting in our boxes

Notching up our victories as other people's losses

Another day, another chance to turn our faces away from pain

"Let's get a takeaway."

I'll meet you in a pub a little later

We'll say the same things as ever

Life's a waiting game

When are we going to see that life is happening?

And every single body bleeding on its knees is an abomination

Every natural being is making communication

We're just sparks, tiny parts of a bigger constellation

Minuscule molecules that make up one body

The tragedy and pain of a person you have never met

Is present in your nightmares and in your pull towards despair

The sickness in this culture and the sickness in our hearts

Is a sickness that's inflicted by this distance that we share

It was our bombs that started this war

And now it rages at distance

We can't dismiss all its victims as strangers

These are parents and children made dogs by this danger

But existence is futile

So we don't engage

It was our boats that sailed

Killed, stole and made frail

It was our boots that stamped

It was our courts that jailed

They were our fucking banks that got bailed

It was us who turned bleakly away

Looked back down at our nails and our wedding plans

In the face of a full-force gale

We said it was not up to us to make this place a better land

It's not up to us

To make this place

A better land

Justice, justice

Recompense

Humility

Trust is

Trust is something we can never see

Until love is unconditional.

The myth of the individual

Has left us disconnected, lost and pitiful.

I'm out in the rain

It's a cold night in London

I'm pleading with my loved ones to wake up and love more

More empathy

Love more

I'm standing on a stage in front of a room full of strangers

Staring down the barrel of a camera

I don't know who's watching

I'm pleading with my loved ones to do what they remember

Wake up and love more.

BEAT KICKS IN

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

MUSIC ENDS

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

London.

CHEERING

I see your point.

Your Shard-steel sky

Your firework smiles

Your laser lights

Your pace flips my stomach

I yearn to hold you down

You make me feel like your mistress

Stretched under you, around you, through you

I know your backdrops and fast routes

I overstand your underground

Temperamental on Sunday nights

Fluorescent hall full, music

Loud we dance

In our intimate space with our foreheads close

And our closed eyes shut

We dance

You take my hand and you spin me round your core

Faster and faster

Ever-changing, ever-returning under our time-scarred moons

Our mouths howling like wolves in your world wound

Where hope hangs in narrow mews

Hidden between tower blocks

Not warm enough to nestle

Too hard to spring from

Flawless from far

But, London

You're a frantic

Relentless

Needless addiction

Who should know that, though I need you,

I know that you need me too

Without me, who will sing you lullabies on late lonely nights?

Who will breathe and keep pace with you?

Without me, London

There would be nobody to see you and agree with your point of view

No soul to love your incessant core enough to forgive you

For your indeterminable flaws.

Thank you.

APPLAUSE

Enough

Shattered glass

Shattered glass, shattered glass

And remnants of a troubled past

He shuffled past the mirror

He wasn't fat

Handsome?

Maybe hidden in his withered cap

He had a scissor 'tache

He was slouched down with a humpback

And his hair's a mat

Maybe wet

I can't tell if it's gel or slithered back

It shows that his clothes give him slack

A lot of that

Too much, in fact

Baggy sack

Burdened with a baggy pack

Herded with the pixels without friction.

Like...

Like a laggy Mac

Can you handles that?

No answers back

And pause for pause that lifts, stiff

As if it's hard to give or artefact

He's hardly black

There's no dirt to hurt

There's no lips to crack

There's no whips heard in early snap

Half-parting mouth of the South

But his eyes are windows to an empty house

And you would have never heard him

No, there's no quiver in his lips

Hand tucked into the pockets at his hips

No quick drawing at high noon

He's a truant but not clueless

No saloon doors, more of the quiet tongue

Sarcophagus of spit and sinks underneath a silent song

Tumbleweed.

Mumbling, he hides under the comfort of his humble speech

Brain fluid is his only movement

And in that, he's really fluid

He's searching for the conclusion and you see he's clearly

He's clearly losing it

He's loose of grip

Not palms feeling humid

But arms unarmed and still be wary

Fleeing when he's shooting but not a message in his murder

Well, you would have never heard him

You'd have to turn around and squint as near as I did

Broken eyelids for a glimpse of him.

But his image is a symphony

And I'm stood here listening.

APPLAUSE

She...

Started as a waitress

Skimpily dressed, showing a lot of flesh, as the uniform requested

She felt like a sex object

Every time she served a drink at the table

Men would put their tongue in her earlobe

And ask if she was available for fetish desires

XXX-rated and unspeakable

Now, she complained, but the boss wanted some of the same

And the cycle of harassment starts again and again

And again and again

The bullets we baptised...

MIMICS GUN COCKING, SHOOTING

REVERSE BREATH

POP ..in tear droplets

The bullets were baptised in tear droplets

Now, she can't take the stress

Minimal tips and low wages

And suddenly

She thinks

As the men come

And they touch her She slaps them in the face

And then she constantly keeps complaining

And then... GUN COCKING, REVERSE BREATH

..she realises now she wants justice

But all she finds is just them who just diss

It's very hard to prove the truth in a courtroom full of men

So even under subpoena

Witnesses fail to come in and give the evidence that she needs

To actually survive and get the justice

That she needs...needs...needs

REVERSE BREATH

Suddenly...

REVERSE BREATH

A pimp arrives on the scene

He decides to offer her after-hour schemes

Where she can make monumental amounts of money

For herself and her young child

Now... REVERSE BREATH

She slides up and down the pole

Up and down the pole Up and down the pole

Rhythmically moving fast and slow

The men in the front row are shouting,

"Take it off for me, baby! Take it off for me!"

The snake slithers in between her double Ds

She covers with some cream

She looks at her image in the mirror and she...

REVERSE BREATH, SMACK ..smashes the glass

Takes one of the broken fragments

And holds it over her left and right wrist

And contemplates which one she should...

The bullets are baptised in tear droplets

Now she becomes a mule

She has drugs and coco bags stored inside

And when she reaches gate number nine... REVERSE BREATH

The bag bursts inside and she dies.

The sign of her death was notified to the son

And as soon as he found out that she died, he starts to cry

Then he goes outside And with a loaded gun

He starts shooting soft drink cans off the backyard fence

Soft drink cans off the backyard fence. GUN COCKING

His intent is to get revenge on the local pimp

And as he shoots, tears... POP

..roll down his arm... POP, POP

Until the gun cartridge and the bullets

Become baptised in tear drops

Enjoy every moment of your life, will you?

REVERSE BREATH

Europe is lost.

Caked in chaos...chaos..chaos

And just so you understand that the level us poets are on

There is actually people walking around

With Kate Tempest tattoos on.

KISSES

APPLAUSE