Let Them Eat Chaos

By Kae Tempest

Kae Tempest's powerful narrative poem--set to music on their album of the same title, shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize--illuminates the lives of a single city street, creating an electric, humming human symphony.

Let Them Eat Chaos, Kae Tempest's long poem written for live performance and heard on the album release of the same name, is both a powerful sermon and a moving play for voices. Seven neighbors inhabit the same London street, but are all unknown to each other. The clock freezes in the small hours, and one by one we see directly into their lives: lives that are damaged, disenfranchised, lonely, broken, addicted, and all, apparently, without hope. Then a great storm breaks over London, and brings them out into the night to face each other, giving them one last chance to connect.

Tempest argues that our alienation from one another has bred a terrible indifference to our own fate, but counters this with a plea to challenge the forces of greed which have conspired to divide us, and mend the broken home of our own planet while we still have time. Let Them Eat Chaos is a cri de cœur, a call to action, and a powerful poetic statement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Release date: Jan 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781632868787

Kae Tempest

Kae Tempest is a poet. They are also a writer, a lyricist, a performer and a recording artist. They have published plays, poems, a novel, a book-length essay, released albums and toured extensively, selling out shows from Reykjavik to Rio de Janeiro. They received Mercury Music Prize nominations for both of the albums Everybody Down and Let Them Eat Chaos, and two Ivor Novello nominations for their song-writing on The Book of Traps and Lessons. They were named a Next Generation Poet in 2014, a once-in-a-decade accolade. They received the Ted Hughes Award for their long-form narrative poem Brand New Ancients and the Leone D’Argento at the Venice Teatro Biennale for their work as a playwright. Their books have been translated into eleven languages and published to critical acclaim around the world. They were born in London in 1985 where they still live. They hope to continue putting words together for a long time.

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Contents

Let Them Eat Chaos

A Note on the Author

This poem was written to be read aloud

Without contraries is no progression.

– William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

– John 4:18 (KJV)

Let Them Eat Chaos

Picture a vacuum

An endless and unmoving blackness

Peace

Or the absence, at least

of terror

Now,

in amongst all this space,

see that speck of light in the furthest corner,

gold as a pharaoh’s deathbox

Follow that light with your tired eyes.

It’s been a long day, I know, but look –

watch as it flickers

then roars into fullness

Fills the whole frame.

Blazing a fire you can’t bear the majesty of

Here is our Sun!

And look – see how the planets are dangled around it

and held in their 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 that she’d get.

She looks at 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.

Is that a smile

playing across her lips?

Or is it a tremor of dread?

The sadness of mothers

as they watch the fate of their children

unfold.

In now.

In

fast.

Visions.

The colours like drugs in your belly,

churning.

Your skin pulled loose as a pup’s,

shaken

then tightened.

Now everything’s flashing.

The waves are magnified as they roll up

towards you

And you’re tiny as sand,

just a speck.

As you approach the surface

all of that

peace

that you felt is replaced with this

furious

neverknown

passion.

You’re feeling.

The people. The life.

Their faces are bright in your body.

You’re feeling.

You want to be close to them.

Closer.