Freedom by Jennie Hart (inspired by Bob Dylan)

"An' for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail

An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing. "

Bob Dylan "The Chimes of Freedom"

Artist: Astrid Knudsen

An abusive step-dad drives a girl from home

She can no longer stand his beastly ways

It gives her pain to leave and be alone

But she can’t live with him that’s what she says

 

A young man throws a brick, he’s in a war zone

He’s heard the guns and bombs since his first breath

Now he’s in a jail and all alone

He’s a human in a cage with just his grief

 

Binita sees scenes daily that haunt and terrorise

She needs a place of safety, free from harm

But waiting her are horrors that it’s hard to visualise

She never heard when other migrants warned and spread alarm

 

Beware they said of gangmasters their role is to exploit

They force you into labour, take control

The name for it is slavery, of that there is no doubt

Sex work and prostitution, it deprives you of your soul

 

Bob Dylan called for freedom for the homeless

For the drifters, rebels, deaf and blind and mute

Outlaws, poets, painters and the speechless

The mistreated mate-less mother and the mis-titled prostitute

 

Freedom is a human being’s birth-right

To have the choice to cry, to laugh, to give

To go the way we choose it shouldn’t be a fight

Freedom to live the way we want to live