There is more to life

MERVyN Ennis - Lyricist

Mervyn Ennis is a native of Dublin and now lives in Saggart. He has had his poetry recognised in Irish and British awards and in Irish, British, Italian and Australian publications. The form ranges from traditional to performance poems,  from reflections of a frugal, rural childhood, to working alongside the Travellers as a community worker to experiences as head social worker in the Irish Military peacekeeping arena where he  experienced at first hand the futility of war

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There is more to life
 
If one life is worth
All the riches on earth                        
How can you reach for a gun?
Can love of a brother
Breed hatred of another
Does humanity not make us all one
Do your deep feelings stirred
Where injustice occurred
Justify death and destruction
A price paid in blood
Shattered bone strewn in mud
Sucked into violent seduction
 
Chorus:
There is more to life than
Hatred and heroes
Hypocrites, angels and apes
Revered or reviled
They are some mother’s child
And human not stereotypes
 
We know an eye for an eye
 And a tooth for a tooth
Can leave us all toothless and blind.
If freedom comes
From the mouth of a gun
Is it not a blight on mankind
How can a hand trap water or sand
Imprison a soul or a thought
Can it dry all the ink
That writes what we think
Before freedom’s fire is caught.
 
Chorus
They can try with their might
To block out the light
But can they quench all the stars
Barbed towers they can raise
Set their ovens ablaze
But the spirit can soar through their bars
Freedom is not given or taken
We all have a place in the sun
No knave can enslave
Or revolution save
What is ours since life first begun
Chorus
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"That question is this: Is man an ape or an angel? I, my lord, I am on the side of the angels" Benjamin D'Israeli

.In this lyric, Mervyn is railing against injustice and oppression wherever it is to be found.

Recorded at Contact Studios, Tallaght.  Recording Engineer and Instrumentalist Gerry Horan.  Backing Vocalist Danai Kelleher ​