Here's one I wrote earlier - a lot earlier - but which, without the epigraph, I think I might risk sending.
FALLUJA
(The ‘final’ bombing and assault on Falluja followed on the ‘re-election’ of George Bush and on the Lancet’s report of the deaths of 98,000 Iraqi civilians, mainly women and children, after the illegal invasion of their country by the ‘foreign fighters’ of the US and Britain. This figure for civilian deaths excluded those killed in Falluja during the first assault.)
Come friendly bombs, fall on us now,
As humans, we don’t count somehow,
And SMARTest weapons still allow
Unreckoned death.
Come bombs, and blow to bloody rags
Insurgents garbed as scally-wags,
False youths, false men, false maids, false hags,
Not worth life’s breath.
Bomb and bulldoze Falluja’s town,
Bring minarets, like statues, down -
Their message with munitions drown
And burst our ears.
And smash those folk, from God-knows-where,
Who simply fight and do not care,
But live among us - everywhere -
Till death appears.
Then, ‘blitz’ our homes and lay them low,
Entomb our dead so, at one blow,
As ‘Freedom’ spreads, we’ll learn to know
‘Liberty’s’ knell.
But spare ‘police’ and oil-men too,
Who toil to aid ‘allied’ air-crew,
In heaven-cleaving work they do
Above our Hell.
It’s not their fault they cannot smell
Exploded guts, or even tell
The scream of death from that of shell,
That tears at flesh;
And only think of furloughs free,
In Fort Worth or in Milwaukee,
And don’t look down, slight death to see,
But shower up fresh.
In unbombed homes, with loving wives,
They’ll tease out unentangled lives
For decades, till their turn arrives
To draw last breath.
So - friendly bombs, fall on us now
That, from our dust, may grow somehow,
Inhuman strength, enough to vow
Their choking death.
(With apologies to John Betjeman)
- though I suspect this is not the kind of serious response the Speccie is looking for - more bulldoze East Kilbride or dynamite Milton Keynes. They certainly wont want a call to plough under Chipping Norton - though come to think of it, that is not such a bad idea!
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