Two Poems

Passchendaele

When your life's f**ked up and each day is a curse,
It helps to remember, things could be worse;

When the spark of resistance fails to light,
It is a mark of persistence to stand and fight;

In the times when hope burns dim and low,
There remains one thing I will always know;

Whenever this life whacks and smacks me,
When an enemy (or so-called friend) attacks me --

One thought jerks me back, one thought without fail:
I was not sent to die ... at Passchendaele!

-------------------------

Passchendaele (glorified as the Third Battle of Ypres) is the epitome of the mindless industrial slaughter of the First World War. Hundreds of thousands of men -- on both sides -- died in agony in a sea of mud under relentless driving rain. Shells and machine gun bullets accounted for most, but thousands (yes, thousands!) simply drowned in the waterlogged swamps of the battlefield. It was the closest thing to hell on earth our planet has ever seen.

--------------------------

One faintly interesting feature of this poem (upon reflection) is that you can move around any of the first four couplets and it will still make sense. Sort of.

Lance Corporal

My heart fell down me trousers,
Jayz, ye lousers,
would ye never let me gang awah?

There be nowt more new to be said,
amn't I almost dead?
Will I have a drop of whiskey? I will.

Yerra, God, that's good. Simple and plain.
Halfway sane.
Tell me, lads, yer names again?

Is it Tom, Dick, and Harry?
Ho-ho, listen, never marry,
Never marry the first young lass what arsks yeh!
Wheeze.
Wheeze.
That were a joke.

I'm old, decrepit, and bollock
naked under this here blanket,
just like the Scots under their kilts.
Hee, hee, hee.
Cough, cough, spit.
Where's that bloody whiskey?

The parson went over after the battle,
large and fat and smarmy,
and used his little officer's cane
to flick over the kilts
on the bare dead buttocks,
to make it decent, like.

I had no time for him
or his old-time silly religion
lost long before. They sent us over
to fight for King and Country.
The King never did bugger all for me,
and the "Country" did fook all as well:
I coom over because I were sent.
And because of the lads, in course.

I'm a hundred and fookin seven this year,
here in this bleedin' hospital,
not thinking of heaven,
not thinking of anything much, in fact.
I'm trying to forget:
still trying to forget.
The television crews
want to put me on the news --
"Last Survivor Succumbs"
let them suck their bleedin' thumbs.
I have nothing to say.
I have nothing to say to that shower.
I have a lot I would like to say
to Bert, and Titch and Tommy G,
to Jimbo, Fishface, Tandragee,
and to that young Lieutenant what's-his-face.
All dead. Killed eighty fookin years ago
in front of my eyes. No surprise.
There is so much I want to say to them
but cannot. The words won't come.

People hover beside this bed,
waiting for me to die. Ghouls.
I have nothing more to say to them.
If I close my eyes, with luck I'll try
to elude them, to join my dead young comrades
in the overarching sky.

It's me, I'll say,
so don't be afraid.
So sorry, boys,
I were slightly delayed.

Departures

Leaving this life is not so hard.
It's the thought
of being dead, permanently,
that doesn't quite appeal.
An absence of existence
mocks the resistance
that makes this life so real.
Surreal?
Anyway,
you can be led, half mentally,
traded, sold, and bought --
like a dealer throws a card.

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue.
Read out these words at night, alone --
I was a poet, I was young*

KISS, clearly means
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
So do not go gentle
into that good night;
gather together your mental
defences, stand and fight.

In spite of public opinion,
Death has no lasting dominion.
Shake the bars of the cage,
fight and rage,
and when you go down, finally,
all anger, teeth, and claws,
make the most frightful,
and embarrassing,
and difficult
and excruciating
trouble you can cause.

Do not go gentle, do not
go gentle into that good night!
Rage against
the dying of the light!
Do not go soft on me,
do not go soft on me
at the end.

-------------------------------------------------

* James Ellroy Flecker (1884-1915)

Quotations have been pulled from Dylan Thomas:

RIP-tide

It's hard to believe
every walking talking
person you see
is on the high road to the grave,
and nothing and no-one can save
them, sooner or later
they'll all be bagged and tagged,
burned to a turn
or tipped into little holes
in the groaning ground.

That's the final destination,
boys and girls,
for all our smiles and laughter ...
but is there an existence after?
From those shady bourns
no traveller returns:
there are no
whispers, no helpful hints.

Interesting, wouldn't you say,
if only for effect,
if everyone got, after death,
exactly what they expect?

An puisín ban

Fifteen
is the number
that comes back, a dozen times
plus three.
Fifteen times
she ran away
then came back home to me.
I begged her, please consider,
reconsider, please be clever:
would she ever?
Nope. Not once.
Now it's sixteen
and I know that I shall never
see her again ...
macushla, macushla, mo chroí
mo léan géar, an caoine!
But now and then,
it's not so bad.
I feel strangely glad.
For the first time
I feel free.

---------------------
An puisín ban - the little white kitten

Jack in Iraq

The thing about war
is that
you have to be in one
before you
can talk about it
and then
you don't really want
to talk about it
except to the guys
who were there,
the guys who share
the same memories,
because there is this
like, wall,
between you and the people
back home, the ones
who didn't go,
unless, of course,
your particular
brand of horror
took place upon home ground
as it does, I guess,
for most people,
apart from Americans
(they don't call it
the VFW for nothing).

If you've ever
done drugs, not just pot,
but stuff like benzedrine,
and can remember
that jumpy, edgy high,
and can imagine
living in a constant buzz
for months and months
on end ....
well, then, there you have
the general background,
and in the midst of this sh-t,
the buzz and the constant high,
very very bad stuff
happens, and keeps
happening
day after day after day,
so you forget
you really just forget
what your life
was like before,
you honestly can't
remember.

For that reason
some people
(and I know this is true)
turn down Home Leave
because, much as
they want to see
their families,
their parents, their kids,
they are afraid
of the sudden transition
to "normality",
to the questions
they cannot answer
when they know
at the back of their minds
they will have to return
to the madness
and they are afraid
they will lose the edge,
lose the animal knowledge,
and get killed.

When your tour is up
you get home, that's when
the real trouble
sets in: you try
and you try and you try and you try
but you just can't
settle in. God knows
you WANT to
but it just won't happen.
One guy I knew,
totally sane and coherent,
used to sit
with a 30-odd-six
in the upstairs bedroom window
of his parents' house
(he didn't want to move out,
he needed company, regular mealtimes)
and from this window
he'd draw careful beads
on passing civilians:
so far, he said, I make sure
the magazine is empty.

War, I'm sorry, is not glorious.
War is not normal.
War is a licence to kill.
War is murder.
War is murder on such a scale
that individual lives
have NO meaning.
Civilians?
F--k civilians!
Anyone gets in the way
you just spray them,
blap - blap ... whoops!
Then you make jokes about it.
That's just the way it is.
The "enemy" is the local
people, period: "Dinks"
or "Gooks" or "Hajjis",
whatever: they all go down
if they ain't us.
Killing is so easy.
Killing is so easy
and nobody cares, nobody
gives a sh*t. It's accepted,
until you come back home
and try to be normal,
try to readjust, but you start
having these memories, start
having nightmares, flashbacks,
about the people you killed,
and it scares you, it freaks you,
and there is nobody
NOBODY
you can talk to.

I ran over a 6-year-old kid.
I shot a pregnant woman.
I shot an old guy because he couldn't speak English.

At the time, it was NORMAL,
(you know?) . Now ....
Oh, Jesus, now!!

Is there no-one to talk to?
Hello, government; hello, military?
Seems your lines are always engaged.
I need to hook up with some guys,
the ones who were there,
the guys who understand,
and more and more,
for the guys in this war,
we connect with the older guys,
the guys who went to Vietnam,
and it blows our minds
to listen to these guys
because it's like, it's like
a siren going off in our heads:
WHEEEEEeeeeeeeee.........!!
This is the same, same
f-cking, f-cking thing!

It was bad the first time, way back then.
So why the f-ck do we do it again?

Ilona Herzbrecht remonstrates with Staff Sgt. George E. Miller, Jr. (Germany, 1946)

Da warst Du bei uns
gestern Abend.
You came to us
yesterday evening.
Bloss hab' ich Dich
garnicht gemerkt.
but I never
never noticed.

Was hast Du denn
mit Mir gemacht?
What have
you done to me?
Ich versteh' nicht mehr
I no longer understand
was los ist!
what's happening.

Warum,
Warum ... wieso?
Why?
Geh' weg von Mir,
Hau ab, Du!
Get away from me,
Get lost, you!

Aber, lieber Herr Miller,
sollst doch bleiben!
But dear Mr. Miller,
you must stay!


Ich brauche (need) mehr Zigaretten.
Camel. Oder, besser, Lucky Strike.

The dreadful truth about teenagers

Just like us --

Our litle babies,
our treasured children,
confound us:
they grow and become
pre-pubescent papillae
in the foggy
forenoon of fornication.

They f--k you up, your mom and dad,
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had,
And add some extra, just for you.*

I never chose you
as my goddam parents!
(so goes the youthful cry of blame)
You think WE had any choice, kid ?
So, too, it seems, we're stuck with you:
in the end, it's all the same.
--------------------------------

* Philip Larkin, British poet. Awkward, dangerously good.

An Doire

An Doire

The streeling wind
blows in from the west
with the smell of the smokestacks
and ingrained poverty:
the tears, unwelcome,
sting in my staring,
unblinking eyes.

O God, the memories ....

These streets, unchanged,
these rain-streaked and heartless
bricks and stones: a geography
of sorrow. From here, Number 21,
Auntie Molly kissed Uncle Pat good bye
and never saw him again;
drowned in the freezing seas
on the Murmansk run
back in the cold dark war
that was being fought
for freedom
for democracy
for the rights of the downtrodden;
a war, I am told, we won,
and which never changed
local conditions
one little
bit.

O there was laughter there
in the soft Derry air
(we laugh at our own funerals)
and me Daddy
met me Mammy
which was a good thing all round,
considering
somebody else
would be having to write
this otherwise.

Growing up
was music and girls,
girls and music,
with school and the parents
interfering. Until
we saw Martin Luther King
on our black and white TVs
and thought,
if he can, why can't we?

That's how it started.

Thirty-five years later
you wonder
was it worth it?
All the dead pals, the funerals,
all the bad things
we did ourselves.
I don't know.

When I look at Iraq
I can't help
but remember our own little war
(bad enough at the time):
it's when you start to rationalize
murder, so-called military action,
there is, for want of better words,
an abstention of guilt: people
call it patriotism, the national will,
but this is mental novocaine,
and nothing but lies and evasion.
This much I can tell you,
the memories will always come back,
O God, do they ever come back!
They will never lie easy.

What I don't understand
is why they blow up their own people;
we never did that
(well, we did, accidentally).
What the logic requires,
relentlessly, cold-bloodedly,
is to hit the foreign soldiers,
hit the soldiers. Kill them.
(but you start to sympathize
with the bastards: they are,
after all, the same age as you).
Then, more wisely,
you focus on economic targets,
you blow up the City of London, the pipelines,
and after a few hard hits in the pocket,
the "suits", the enemy civilians,
initiate reluctant "talks".

You win if you can just hold out.
You win if you refuse to lose.
It is the "Terrorists"
who give birth to free nations,
just like the Minutemen
of Lexington and Concord.

Two political poems

Demos -- the people

The cloud-scraping
towers of our civilisation
rest triumphantly
if uncertainly
on forgotten foundations:
demokratis -- the people speak
not only to pass on
theoretical inherent 'powers'
to vote-grabbing politicians
BUT
to take part in all public issues
AND
to take part in all public trials
so that citizen referenda
supercede not only
Congress, but also the Judiciary,
and direct the Executive.

Well, now,
that can't be allowed.
Trust the people as a whole
non-professionals, to reach
the power decisions we need?
Hahahaha -- government
by -- hahaha -- opinion poll?
(let me wipe away my tears of laughter)
Well, yes, actually,
that's what
demokratis
means.
So that (for example)
all registered voters
can decide on the war in Iraq
not to mention
the fate of Michael Jackson.

Can be done. Is done, to some extent,
in smaller nations, such as
Switzerland and Norway,
Ireland, Denmark and Holland:
the government is led by the people
and not the other way round.

Think about that, Shrub,
and Shotgun Cheney,
as you "liberate" the Middle East
(no hotbed of democracy)
and then, piously, deplore
the dreadful outcome
of their first free and open elections.
They didn't vote for the "right" guys.
Oh, get real.

Chickenhawk

Why is it, tell me,
that the most bloodthirsty people,
the most spine-chilling
architects of murder,
of "rendering" and "transition"
and good old-fashioned torture
remain safely Stateside,
surrounded by a bevy of bodyguards,
dark-suited, shaven-headed,
designer sunglassed,wired
to mikes (Charley Alpha Zulu)
in suburban shopping malls.

You have to laugh.
There is no other possible
(considered) reaction.

Marat got murdered in his bath,
so maybe Bush should get whacked
in his shower, after a workout
at the White House gym; or, better yet,
while (televised) clearing brush
on that joke he calls a ranch.
Another Texas chainsaw massacre.
Never happen.
Getting rid of these ikons
don't mean nothing; replacements
pop up, with clockwork regularity,
and the batons of badness pass on.
They just don't get it.
They don't know any better.

Colonel Tibbets remarked, he said
we trained very hard for this mission
and we knew what we had to do;
when we pulled away from that target
we were lifted up by a shock wave,
and I knew in that moment
that the mission was successful ...
When I looked down, what I saw
was an area of roiling tar
where before there was a city.
Do I have any feelings of guilt?
Well, I knew there were human beings down there
and I felt sorry for them,
but we were sent out to do a job
and we did it. That's the deal.
Anyway, if it hadn't been me
somebody else would have done it.

Somebody else would have done it.

improvised explosive devices

How was I to know
he was the goddam sherriff?
snarled Billy T, just after
we dumped his gun in the canal,
heaved him into the back of the car,
and sped away from the card game.

----------------------

She had such striking dignity
in spite of her bruises, her badly
broken nose: but that was until
she opened her mouth, and the smell
of the booze through her broken
blackened teeth near enough
knocked us over.

-----------------------

Fritz was a baker in Munich
until he became an Army specialist
at the crematorium in Auschwitz:
it's a simple matter, he said at his trial,
of maintaining even temperatures.

------------------------

Julie had two lovely kids
so nobody could quite understand
why they set fire to her
when Daddy was away.

--------------------------

It's such a sweet little job, said Teddy,
So let me know when you think you're ready;
We're in and we're out and nobody knows,
We hit 'em on the head and steal their clothes!

Hang on, says John, about the money?
Dread, says Ted, grabs at my heart
When you guys try to be funny.

Art is one thing, crime is another:
How could you kneel at the grave of your mother
If she thought your actions arose from greed?
Satisfaction can NEVER be the same as need!!

This action, boys, is not a hate event --
This action, boys, is a fashion statement!

--------------------------------------

She had three breasts --
there were two in the normal position
but one was on top of her head.
Logically, we had to convert to Islam
so she could wear a scarf in the daytime;
and everyone thought that was so cool,
so politically correct, very peachy keen,
including me, because after we got home,
I could say give us a bit o' head, girl --
with a whole new world of meaning!

---------------------------------------

Birdsong in the trees
Dappled sunlight filters through
One bird flies away

---------------------------------------

Portia M'Gee was a Dubbalin girl
And she lived down by the river;
Whenever she gave her knockers a twirl
The lads were all in a quiver.

C'mere, says she, for I need a priest,
I'll be needin to make my confession;
If the first come last, but the last are least,
I'll be havin to change me profession.

Yerra, Father Mac was a downy oul' bird
So he laughed at young Portia's confusion;
Ye can come to me girl, as a bird or a turd,
But when ye die it's atomic diffusion.

----------------------------------------

Filthy Fred worked down at the bookies,
And was taking the bets on the races;
When we started in we was all young rookies,
Lads in short pants and our teeth in braces.

Put a shillin on EXBO to win or place,
We'd cry in our shrill and breaking voices;
Get away to ****, get outta me face,
Ye're childer still, don't know the choices!

Ah, Freddy, Fred, MISTER Freddy, please,
Will ye put me shillin on the horse's nose?
I'm beggin ye now, I'll go down on me knees,
There's a hot tip behind it, and nobody knows!

------------------------------------

Look at me straight, says Mister Hate.
Think about money, says Mister Funny.
Think about God, says Mister Odd.
Think about booze, says Mister Choose.
Think about death. Just think about it,
Says the Smiling Angel.

Requiescat in Pace

Overcast skies, a threat of rain,
then the long limousines arrive;
umbrellas cover the blackclad figures,
not many, as they lay poor Michael
in the ground.

Holy Father, intones the priest,
(the mourners shuffle to the edge of the grave)
take this Thy fair but blemished son,
Thy will be done, and grant him a share
in life everlasting.

Afterwards, a cluster of guests
assemble in the home of the bereaved;
polite mumbles, a search for strong drink,
then a second drink, having laid poor Michael
in the ground.

The wife:

I would like to thank
all of you for coming today;
I am at a loss,
I don't really know what to say --
Michael would have been so pleased
to see ... to see

The family friend:

There, there, Cindy, that will do,
Teddy will give you a nice long drink;
I have no idea what happened with Michael,
I don't know what to think --
a sad loss, such a sad loss.

Michael was my very dear friend
and we were in business together;
you can be sure I will miss him --
but I can't help wonder whether
he knew, he knew this would happen ....

The mother:

Michael was such a darling little boy,
and I used to hug and play with him,
the bouncing blue-eyed light of my life;
lately, I never knew what to say to him,
and he would never drop by or call,
never, not once at all ....

The sister:

Michael was ten years older
and he had ... he had control over me;
I used to cry hot bitter tears
when he'd press down hard and roll over me,
all sticky down below, but I was young,
and I don't remember ... won't remember.

The brother:

I'm sorry, but I never liked Michael,
he was always a bully and a cruel bastard,
totally, and insanely selfish;
bad enough sober, he was worse when plastered,
well, I'm sorry to see him dead,
but not much ... not much.

The schoolmaster:

Michael had a head for figures,
and he was most extraordinarily adept
with columns of numbers;
alone and secretive, he often wept,
but there was a cruel little streak
in the boy ... that boy.

The police inspector:

I hope you will pardon my intrusion
on this private family occasion,
please accept my apologies;
but to speak bluntly, and without evasion,
this man was a crook,
and he was shot down ... shot dead

BY ONE OF YOU!!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
cry out the assembled guests:

- the wife
- the family friend
- the mother
- the sister
- the brother
- the schoolmaster

furtive, darting glances
take in the windows, the walls and the roof;
(be calm, be cool
don't act the fool)
this cop may have his suspicions,
what he doesn't have is proof!

Domestic

Fifteen years of marriage,
two kids, one of them
playing in the
basketball finals
tomorrow evening
(and you know
damn well we
have to be there!)
while the other
is finishing up
her Science Project
due tomorrow,
which, I freely admit,
I basically wrote for her,
and suddenly,
tonight, without
warning,
you tell me
you want a divorce?

What?
Where are you
coming from?
Why now, why tonight?
Couldn't you wait
at least, until
after the game,
after the Project?
Couldn't you wait
at least, until
my heart slows down?

Another guy?
O sweet weeping Jesus,
I cannot believe
I am listening
to this conversation:
you are in love
with another guy?
What about your
kids, you idiot hoor,
what about,
what about me?

What?
So that's all
you have to say?
You are in love
with this guy
from Mecca Carpet Designs
who drives
a rented Porsche
and dresses
like a Hollywood pimp?
Omigod, you
are - in love - with
this ... this idiot?

I don't know
what to say.

Hey, look at me,
no, I'm serious,
look at me, baby:
I have a gun
in my hands
and you know what?
I'm going
to shoot you
for the sake
of the kids, really,
and you know
what else? it's also
for your own good,
you filthy hoor,
because
I mean to say
Mecca Carpet Designs?
Un-fakkin-believable!!
I mean to say,
you leave me
you little hoor
you leave ME
I expect, I demand
you move up
you don't move down.

Mecca Carpet Designs?
No, that wasn't
nice.