WAR
HIROSHIMA
I remember it well, that first day in Hell
So long ago, I know
As the sirens sounded our Yankee foe
Decided that now, his power we would know
So dropped his Atomic Bomb from the sky
That caused those below to melt and to fry
We all saw the flash and then felt the blast
That blew infernos around us, to eerily cast
A different light on a different world
As blackened bodies lay unfurled
In corners and gutters clinging together
Welded and wedded where no man could sever
Yet skinless souls still shuffled by
In silent circles they would try
To see the sun, to see the sky
I remember it well, that first day in Hell
So long ago, I know
When God let man his fate create
And Genius fell to earth, as hate
As dependant on a Compass whim
Determined how much blackened skin
Would flap around, about your heel
Or even how much pain you’d feel
As you dragged around your cloak of death
Blinded, deafened, sucking breath
Those with huge bloated heads just staggered around
’Til their eyeballs popped out, to explode on the ground
The Mushroom cloud now rose on high
As snow-like ashes fell to lie
On those below who searched the sky
I remember it well, that first day in Hell
So long ago, I know
I watched where tender lips did lie
To see dark holes vent silent cry
I saw the shape of a horse, in the Sun
As he stood in God’s warmth, ’til a hotter one
Burnt him so perfect, against a white wall
In an instant heat, that left no time to fall
I saw shadows on steps, where bodies had curled
As vaporized souls left their mark on this world
Now black dollops of rain fell out of the mist
From that curse`d sky in one final twist
But the deaf and the blind who looked up to God
Found these cascades of rain were naught but a fraud
For they fell with the splash of hot nuclear ash
I remember it well, that first day in Hell
So long ago, I know
Then we dug in the rubble, the debris to hurl
And managed to find a frail little girl
It dampened our glee, when she just couldn’t see
But still managed to cry, thru one squid-like eye
Whose last look at life was facing the Sun
That once gave her birth, but then fell to Earth
So feeling her pain on that lonely day
I stroked her long hair, ’til I felt her sway
As it fell out in clumps, and looked really bad
For although she was blind, she felt really sad
Then our saviours arrived with water and food
But no victims of burns should drink, if they could
So they gasped and gave up, and dropped where they stood
I remember it well, that first day in Hell
So long ago, I know
This child that we found needed blood, so my friend
Decided to give, being so close to the end
So he gave what he could though feeling so feeble
But couldn’t stop bleeding when they took out the needle
He had just drunk too much of that evil black rain
So we stood by in shame, as he gave up his pain.
In the centre of town stood a fountain and pond
Thirsty circles clung there, ’til Death waved her wand
Now they sit in my mind, but at night circle round
Like those in the fires, who dug into the ground
The firestorm had started to eat up the air
Yet many stood still, for they just didn’t care
But most panicked in fear, and ran here and ran there
I remember it well, that first day in Hell
So long ago, I know
So we ran to the river but the river ran red
As thousands jumped in, as they burned and they bled
But they drowned in the scrum, and ended up dead
As corpses and bodies to the surface were fed
Our nails and our teeth and our hair then fell out
While those trapped in the fires screamed shout after shout
The day that huge plane dropped a gift with regret
A gift to remember, a gift to forget
When it placed Hell on Earth, and our City ceased
With a toast from the skies, and a boast from the beast
DEDICATED TO LITTLE TAEKAKO YOSHIMOTO, ONE OF THREE THOUSAND SCHOOLCHILDREN WHO PERISHED THAT FIRST DAY IN HELL
Audio Version
SAD AND INSANE
I’m not sad or insane
I’m just Saddam Hussein
But I hate all those Kurds
Who float round like turds
For they live in a marsh
And although it sounds harsh
I will dose ’em with gas
’Til their nerves all wither
Then laugh as they drop
To slurp and to slither
I’ll choke off their lungs
And poison their blood
And then grind their children
All into the mud
I will bomb them and napalm them
Then bury and embalm them
For to me it seems right
To slaughter them all
By day, or by night
DEDICATED TO SADDAM’S COUSIN ALI HASSAN AL-MAJID, ALSO KNOWN AS CHEMICAL ALI, RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHEMICAL GASSING OF FIVE THOUSAND MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE KURDISH CITY OF HALABJAH
Audio Version
SO LUCKY
In bandit country, this looks bad
A milk churn rests on concrete slab
So driving by, we cruise so slow
Fingers on triggers, ready to go
But the blast erupts a yard away
To change our lives that fateful day
My face gets smashed against the truck
But I am told I have great luck
With lungs all pierced with shrapnel hits
And bones that are all smashed to bits
I am so lucky, so they say
To just survive that fateful day
With rib-cage collapsed, and ribs all broke
From shrapnel clots I got a stroke
With a broken neck I got last rites
The doctors rarely saw such sights
Blind and deaf, my ears hung down
But I was lucky, not to drown
In my own blood, so they say
So lucky, on that fateful day
TO MICHEAL KELLY, YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY, BLOWN UP IN SOUTH ARMAGH 1971
Audio Version
TIDES OF TIME
As changing tides of time
Wash pebbles from the mind
Let them carve a warning sign
Like some secret valentine
For as the wheels of life run dry
Only memories do not die
As grinding on they slowly spin
The threads of life they weave within
Like silken shadows hanging still
Life’s illusions hide at will
But hollow hopes can never be
At peace with truth, and never free
’Til peoples of the Earth are one
Like clouds adrift, beneath the Sun
Audio Version
AUSCHWITZ
As I shuffle, as I shift
The tons of ashes slowly drift
As tens of thousands daily dead
To the pit are quickly fed
In flaming fires where pain is passed
And love alone survives the fast
As barbed wire beckons sleep
So shaven ladies leap
To where electric fences reap
Burnt rewards for fleet of feet
Now freed from tolling life’s grim bell
Now freed from out this living hell
To where their souls delivered free
Can seek some bleak eternity
They wander in a blackened cave
They wallow in an empty grave
They sadly sink in freedoms womb
To gladly walk into the tomb
Where furnace chimneys smoke above
And clouds of life drift off like love
DEDICATED TO THE ONE MILLION JEWS WHO PERISHED IN THIS CAMP ALONE.
Audio Version
THE TRUTH OF THE TRUCE
DEDICATED TO PRIVATE FRANK RICHARDS
Buried in mud, deep down in our trench
We dream of our bed and wish we were dead
For we hear all the wails as we chew on our nails
And munch our plum puddings as hard as a brick
While we fight in this war, feeling so sick
For the innocent men who must die every day
So General Haig can have his own way
But we’re not the ones, to even ask why
Just run for the Hun, and hope not to die
But suddenly Christmas comes marching along
And some of the Germans burst into song
A candlelit tree near our front line they carried
As they sang Silent Night, around us they scurried
But they staggered along, for they just couldn’t see
Thru the flurries of snow where the trenches should be
But then Private Richards dug deep in the mud
And flung them a pudding all covered in blood
But when they returned with cases of beer
We lost all our anger and drowned out our fear
The officers all then agreed a reprieve
So the men could rejoice on this cold Christmas Eve
Then we laid down our dead, in bleak no-mans land
To the mournful tune of a lone Piper Band
As gifts were exchanged simple logic explained
Why this truce should not end with the gifts we did send
But General Haig then panicked in fright
When he found half his Army just wouldn’t fight
So out in the snow in the dead of the night
To slaughter some soldier, a sniper he sent
Who soon found a target, for the truce now was rent
As big guns erupted and peace slowly passed
The top brass corrupted to make the war last
But what did they gain, no one will know
As hordes of our heroes dropped down like the snow
Why this carnage continued just isn’t clear
For they slaughtered a million, year after year
But we who survived will never forget
That fateful day when two armies met
We all will remember that cold Christmas Eve
When late one December, in God we believed.
Audio Version
FIRESTORM OVER DRESDEN
In old Dresden City, where the girls were so pretty
We were running in fear because we could hear
Many planes in the night, and the terrible sight
Of thousands of bombs, as they sang out their songs
To fall just like rain, as we screamed out in pain
When tons of pure phosphor dropped down like snow
On the people below with nowhere to go
Then they circled us all in a huge ring of fire
Which started to spiral, as it grew even higher
Our lungs just drained dry, as the fire soared on high
People burst into flames, and soon joined the dead
For into the firestorm their bodies were fed
As children and babies were just sucked away
When Hell fell on Earth, turning night into day
Pregnant women in shock, gave birth in the street
Induced by the noise, and the terrible heat
Horses were charcoaled, where they stood on their feet
So we jumped in canals, and started to pray
But the water boiled up, and baked us like clay
Bomber Harris had claimed his magnificent plan
Would destroy this fine city, down to a man
But some did survive to relate this great tale
Of the day human nature just seemed to fail
And total destruction was then made the aim
When wholescale war was the name of the game
DEDICATED TO THE 35,000 WHO DIED ON 13th FEBRUARY 1945 BY THE HAND OF BUTCHER HARRIS OF BOMBER COMMAND
Audio Version
THE WEDDING AT PORT HARCOURT
DURING THE CIVIL WAR IN NIGERIA, COMMANDER ALBERT DIETE SPIFF CELEBRATED HIS WEDDING IN PORT HARCOURT ONLY TWO MILES FROM WHERE THOUSANDS OF IBO CHILDREN WERE STARVING TO DEATH. A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT, LORD HUNT, SENT THERE TO REVIEW THE FAMINE, CLAIMED THE SITUATION WAS ‘NOT TOO BAD’. IT IS NOT KNOWN IF HE WAS ONE OF THE TWO HUNDRED DIGNITARIES AT THE WEDDING, BUT PERHAPS THE LAVISH EXPENSE OF THE PROCEEDINGS INFLUENCED HIM INTO THINKING THE CRISIS WAS NOT AS BAD AS THE PRESS CLAIMED.
It was
A lovely little wedding
Not white, black, but
With all the local dignitaries
But no Lords, and Albert
So wanted a Lord
I had to tell him
Not many left. Expensive
There were
Lots of Pigs and Goats
But not many Lords;
Especially British Lords
Albert burped and drank
Another Scotch; he should have
Stuck to Champagne, but
Those turkeys, barbecued
That is
Were excelled only by
The roasted piglets, and
The salads, oh those salads
That crisped and crunched
As we sat in circles sipping
We did not stop, not once, we
Could have, but we did not, once
Then we
All decided to go, wanted
To see, but Albert said that
Two miles is two, too far
Besides, if we stopped
And listened, we could hear
Them starve; not that
They made much noise
But on
The wind, we heard
Above the humming flies
The funny cries, the sighs
They carried well like
Smells of food, Albert said
We did not stop, not once, we
Could have, but we did not, once
Audio Version
ARMAGEDDON
A still wind rustles fate
As mushrooms naked blaze
Where skies of conscience trail
Tall spirals in the haze
Now distant fireballs spawn
On cold and callous shores
Where raging suns have split the dawn
In nuclear heat that bores
Into red flesh a deadly ray
To conjure silent screams
And man that toys with life this day
Must now live life in dreams
(Israeli Defence Force)
Audio Version
PART ONE
IN 2004 A SUICIDE BOMBER SLAUGHTERED TWO INNOCENT CHILDREN IN JERUSALEM. ISRAEL SWORE RETRIBUTION, AND BEGAN TO TARGET CHILDREN IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, FORGETTING THAT ONE ATROCITY DOES NOT EXCUSE ANOTHER. DEDICATED TO THE PLATOON COMMANDER OF THE GIVATI BRIGADE, WHO EMPTIED HIS MACHINE-GUN INTO THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD IYMAN AL– HAMS, AS SHE LAY DYING IN THE STREET AND TO THE YOUNG ISRAELI SNIPER WHO SHOT AND KILLED ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD GHADIR MOKHEIMER AS SHE INNOCENTLY SAT AT HER SCHOOL-DESK IN A REFUGEE CAMP IN GAZA CITY.
Feeling brave and feeling pretty
As we carve up Gaza City
We’re heroes of the I.D.F.
Killing kids and dishing death
When we blow up a tenement block
It’s women and children who die in the shock
And we don’t feel bad when we gun down a kid
For of suicide bombers we got to be rid
But these practice targets are running out fast
So we have to resort to shooting through glass
Into classroom windows, where the kids learn to read
But the rate that we kill ’em, there’ll be few left to breed
For we’ve polished off thirty, in a matter of days
And just bagged a beauty on her way up to class
As we shot her just once, when she came up to pass
The heroes of the IDF
Feeling brave and feeling pretty
On their way through Gaza City
Her rucksack, we felt, could have been a bomb
But her shattered face sang a different song
For when she got up she panicked in fear
And ran straight for us; her heroes were near
So we shot her again, as she screamed out in pain
Twenty bullets of lead, made sure she was dead
But in truth most of us shot her straight thru the head
Still, great target practice, this innocent death
For the butchers of the IDF
Feeling brave and feeling pretty
Like rats in a sewer, as we ravage the City.
DEDICATED TO THE PLATOON COMMANDER OF THE GIVATI BRIGADE
SPONSORED BY SAMUEL LEONARD MYERS. J.F.J.F.P
(JEWS FOR JUSTICE FOR PALESTINIANS)
TRILOGY TO THE I.D.F.
(Israeli Defence Force)
PART TWO
IN MARCH 2003 A YOUNG AMERICAN PEACE ACTIVIST, RACHEL CORRIE, WENT TO THE GAZA STRIP TO HELP THE PALESTINIANS AS THE I.D.F. WERE DEMOLISHING 5000 HOMES IN THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES THEY WERE ILLEGALLY OCCUPYING. THE I.D.F. WERE USING AMERICAN SUPPLIED CATERPILLAR BULLDOZERS THAT WERE SPECIALLY ARMOURED BY THE AMERICAN COMPANY WHO SUPPLIED THEM; ALTHOUGH WITNESSES SWORE THE DRIVER OF THE GIANT MACHINE THAT CRUSHED RACHEL TO DEATH WAS VERY AWARE OF HER PRESENCE WHEN SHE GOT TRAPPED, HE IGNORED ALL THE SCREAMS AND CRUSHED HER TO DEATH. HE WAS NEVER TRIED AND ESCAPED ALL PUNISHMENT. RACHEL’S PARENTS SUED THE AMERICAN CATERPILLAR COMPANY FOR SUPPLYING WEAPONS OF WAR.
Feeling brave and feeling pretty
On my way thru Gaza City
Killing kids and dishing death
As a Dozer Driver for the I.D.F.
Carving carnage all around
Perched on high and looking down
As Arab peasants run to ground
I mow down houses, people too
If they dare oppose the chosen few
When I speed up and plough them under
My hearty blade rips them asunder
But I’m so sad when I hear no screams
Over the roar of the monster machines
But a Dozer Driver of the I.D.F.
Can slaughter kids and dish out death
On his way thru Gaza City
Feeling brave and feeling pretty
For we live in a land of milk and honey
That floats on a sea of American money
But we trespass into a stricken land
With tanks and planes at our command
But my favourite toy is my giant bulldozer
And my greatest joy is to knock kids over
As a hero of the I.D.F.
Killing kids and dishing death
Feeling brave and feeling pretty
On my way thru Gaza City
DEDICATED TO THE BUTCHER WITH THE BULLDOZER
TRILOGY TO THE I..D.F.
(Israeli Defence Force)
PART THREE
IN APRIL 2003 AN ISRAELI SNIPER WITH THE I.D.F. SHOT 22 YEAR OLD THOMAS HURNDALL WITH HIS HIGH-POWERED TELESCOPIC RIFLE. TOM WAS IN GAZA AS A PEACE VOLUNTEER AND DIED TRYING TO DRAG THREE YOUNG PALESTINIAN CHILDREN AWAY FROM THE LINE OF FIRE. THEY WERE PINNED DOWN BY THE SAME UNIT, IN THE SAME PLACE, WHERE BRITISH CAMERAMAN, JAMES MILLER, 34 WAS SHOT THROUGH THE NECK, THREE WEEKS LATER. BRITISH COURTS LATER DECLARED THESE INCIDENTS TO BE ILLEGAL KILLINGS, AS WAS THE SHELLING OF A BEACH IN GAZA, IN MARCH, WHEN EIGHT MEMBERS OF A PALESTINIAN FAMILY WERE WIPED OUT AT THE SAME TIME AS DOZENS OF OTHERS WERE BADLY INJURED. THE ORGANISATION, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, WHO MONITORED THE INVESTIGATION, DECLARED IT A TOTAL WHITEWASH, AS WAS THE BOMBING OF RED CROSS AMBULANCES, REFUGEE CAMPS AND THE U.N. COMPOUND IN LEBANON, IN 2006.
Feeling brave and feeling pretty
On our way through Gaza City
We’re heroes of the I.D.F.
Killing kids and dishing death
With telescopic sights I never ever miss
I greet those Arab kids with my supersonic kiss
It was in the Gaza Strip that I became a killer
And my buddy in the unit later killed a Mr. Miller
I was shooting at some kids and nearly got a hit
When some stupid Englishman did his noble bit
Dragging them away from me, out my line of sight
So I simply shot him down, and much to my delight
He fell upon the ground, with a slightly hollow sound
This callow youth of 22, my rifle had brought down
So for little Tommy Hurndall it didn’t take a lot
For a medal-winning marksman, just a single shot
Then English Courts declared these were all war-crimes
But murder here is nothing, just a sign of modern times
As the U.S. always claims, we’re always in the right
So they give us planes and bombs, that we drop in the night
On crowded refugee camps, and on the Red Cross too
And on the U.N. forces for there’s nothing they will do
’Cos we ride on the back of a Holy Holocaust
And for war-crimes like ours, no-one counts the cost
So if you take your family, for a day-out at the beach
You still won’t be safe, you’ll still be in our reach
And our long range guns will blow you all to bits
For heroes of the I.D.F. have to keep their wits
Feeling brave and feeling pretty
On our way thru Gaza City
We’re heroes of the I.D.F.
Killing kids and dishing death
DEDICATED TO SGT. TAYSIR HAYB, HERO OF THE I.D.F.