peace and freedom verses
jerusalem australia
Bring me my jets of burning gold,
for whom the bells ring It would ring the bells of heaven that have not rung for years If nations lost their powers and people came to theirs And everyone together Rose up with fearful prayers for wild and blinkered war-men and maddened Bulls and Bears and wretched bogey newsmen and the mad, marching hares. written on a journey in Britain After a meeting describing the bunkers for important people built in the Grampians, Scotland - but none for the rest of the people. Batten down this earth and its trees before the hurricane Cover the farms and the forests, net over the streams, Butterflies and insects, shield - how? from this flame. But none of these is in a bunkering scheme. Bury the books deep, make cellars for your heritage. Is there a deepfreeze you can bank grandchildren in? Dustcovers for democracy - a military entourage will come to take the scenery, when the war begins. (And must all countries bear that wrath? And must this landscape die? What flesh can barricade their path, What blood unspilled can cry?) Beyond the screens of lies and smoke I see One Fate still spins a spider thread - that it need not be. facing the mirror Humankind that cannot bear very much reality is unaware of our duality with enemies we share the evil that we see only in the foe we know the mirror to our greed the glass to our fear, the seeds that we sow. We cannot see it near and close but over there, we know. And name the evil - in our foe. Beyond Tigers Napalm, napalm burning bright In the forests of the night How can mortal hand or eye Dare frame this fearful way to die? What the factory, what the frame, In what enterprise thy name? What the profits that were sought, Named in the company's report? What workman dare to take his part To pour that poison in your heart? By whom the formula complete? Whose the carrier, whose the fleet? On what distant mouths or eyes Burns this outrage from the skies? Whose the hands that dare desire To touch that key and drop that fire? Stars throw down their lightning spears to quench those deserts with new tears. Now does He smile when this He sees, That what He made, should now make these? The Vietnam War ( Tune" All that I've got is a troubled mind') Dress me in khaki
wave from the shore I'm leaving you fellows I'm sent to the war. Don't promise me glory That meaning's unsure It's kept for the dead when They're sent to the war. Don't promise me freedom There's none any more. It's not for a fellow That's sent to the war. Don't promise me love It's not worth a straw There's none of it lasts when We're sent to the war. Don't promise me Country, Peace, Justice or Law, You've sent them upriver And me to the war. Just bundle all up that you've valued before, It won't need a label Just send to the war. Tomorrow it's your turn You'll cry and implore, Then remember all us folk You sent to the war.
Devil and Us Devil and us is having a fight - Devil is wrong and we are right- Right don't know which way to turn- Got to fight on the Devil's terms- ! If the right should want to win- Got to fight gainst sin with sin- Fighting the devil you can't stay true- Glory hallelujah! Devil's feeling mighty gay- Devil's winning either way- countdown (following a UK news-item about reduced budgets for missiles) Five little Tridents for a nuclear war. One dropped from the estimates and then there were four. Four little Tridents launched into the sea One wasn't fail-safe, and then there were three. Three little Tridents sailing in the blue, One had an accident, and then there were two. Two little Tridents hiding from the sun, One failed its logistics, and then there was one. One little Trident sitting like a bunny A satellite had know-how, and Pop goes all our money. Moral: If you put £7.5 billion into four baskets, don't expect chickens. Playworld Children play and shout "Bang Bang you're dead!" Behind the fence "O God," his mother said. Adults play and shout Their TV blood is red Its drama news tonight, "O God" a mother said. Generals play and shout. Move missiles up ahead. Bomb what? Those towns below. "O God," five million said. Devils play and shout Their dice has rolled ahead and blows apart. "O world," God said. Star Wars Star Peace At the last moment the missiles Saw the trees in the field And the wild things that run In the woods and the streams, From the ricks and the barns, The town roofs and the weather vanes, Faces on people in the streets, And history that had lain Six thousand years. They were poised, hung above this It was a theatre, a war theatre. The scenario of the sky was black around it. Within the sky shone, white, Those stars already dead. Hobbes Leviathan See the dragon clanking towards the abyss. The children cheer, For their nursery stories Are full of dragons. Its scales are of gold, of bronze, And of plutonium. Its eyes are blind. It has breath that kills. Each joint is articulated to move with And to move its whole social carcase. It has a belly like a sex-shop, It has a voice like a howling mob. In its stomach Are three million undigested unemployed. Scattered behind like memorials Lie its stone eggs. Britannia holds her Trident and laughs. A horrified voice calls, "St. George of Merrie England!" For a dead demonstrator - Nance Walsh SOS She walked among the good and bad in tidy coat and shoes a placard in her tired hand which never made the news. She asked the cause and not the use to join the patient queues. There was not any scarlet splash although heart's blood is red, No barricades, no headline clash, No body-count of dead, No photos framed, life-stories sold, No panegyric said. When liberty still has a price to all this may be said, some pay it with a traitor's flags, some with their blood's red. A housewife paid a quiet way; She walked, and is dead. Envoi
Friends, you will break your hearts to build. Its easier to smash, to kill the evil with the good, bring all down in the crash. Sodom you may condemn, without its ten just men. This land, with its good and bad, made Nan.
Peace Will The bird is in the egg, while the bomb is in the shell, the child is in the womb, the souls are in hell. Fresh blows the breeze over new ruins. Flowers with the weeds are in the seeds in the cracks that brought down these empires. Take away the syringe from the brain, gun from the head, horror from the eye of the children, soot without the fire, pitch without the road, offer no god's flesh when the communion is dead. Tell the young children the bomb is in the egg, the bird is explosive, that the infant is monstrous, the man born raging. that cities lie vacant, winds carry the plague. In the cracks waits a hope, waiting for a movement of will. Turning from that screen, from the images, from the wall, let your small hands, as the tendrils, reach for the sun. Listen within you, there's silence, there's music, Look now. Life's done. and again begun.
matriotism - love of all my countries This is the land I was born in, grey-leafed and grand, These are my sunny skies over the red sand, and the canyons dropping down from the strewn plain. I love this land where the dust swirls in the rain. This is the land that I lived in, hills with green leas, among islands interlaced with the deep seas, I would live and die for my country of summer trees. This is the land I have come from, with spice in the street, and singing with drums where the rivers meet, my pulse beats with them, and the rhythms sway to a northern marsh where only the reed pipes play. These are the great cities that gave the earth light, These are the lands that are my birth-right, This is my earth, and yours, it is rich it is dear. Postcessional God of our fathers in the past Far-called our bombers melt away, For heathen heart that puts her trust Earth cannot pay our awful price, Back to Peace Index page Back to Ozideas Home Page |
