Editors note: Excerpt from the journal of the infamous artist Osvald Alving, November 1763. Renowned for his controversial work for the time period, Alving has been labeled on of the great free spirits of a time
when spirits were hardly ever free from social and political oppression.
I learned my lesson on the day in question,
that is, that answers don't come confessing
"It's distressing,
a bother that can't be rightly won,
that the sins of the father are taken out on the son."
Mom sang those words in a song that was a sore one,
I longed at once to soar from
the house to find the poor ones
who taught me of the truth and the beauty and the present
removing past duties and my dark recesses
and my heart confesses that it had been oppressive
fighting back against wealth makes the currency aggressive...
but we fought back with colours and the joy of life
Sisters broke bread with brothers; we destroyed the strife.
And here I found the happiness to love and create
It was great-I'd learned now to rise above the hate!
But then the sickness came...
it started in my brain,
I was ashamed to admit that I could sit and feel the pain
that collided in my mind sending whispers of the past
I was divided and refined by the questions being asked-
"What is it, Osvald?" "Who'd you sleep with last?"
Had this disease come from me? I had to find out fast...
So I traveled back home; the rain began when I arrived
thanking my forsaken God that I was still alive
and I ran inside- mom was slouched at the kitchen table
saying "I've preserved the lies as long as I was able,
you must know the Truth, son, my fears are confirmed
Dad's fire was a cold one; In his image you're burned,
and his past debauchery has culminated in this-
to you he passed his good looks...and his deadly syphilis."
The whispers screamed louder in between my ear drums
I hear them, but they're familiar, I no longer fear them
Because, after all, they're only ghosts of the past
that hang over all our heads until we breathe our very last
And no matter how I tried, I was born to die,
I sought to laugh, love and cry with a passion that's divine
but even all the effort couldn't let me escape
Past ghosts stole my happiness and replaced it with my fate.
Editors note: Are any of us ever free of our past?
*Based on the play Ghosts, by Henrik Ibsen*
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http://www.rapbattles.com/forum/showthread.php?t=325628
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