Poetry Corner
We should know by now that NATO kills
Cailean Bochanan
We should know by now that NATO kills
Killing in Serbia and Iraq
In Afghanistan the plan of attack
Bombing weddings in the hills
We should know by now that NATO kills
Taking away the child’s breath
In tribute to the cult of death
Is this really what God wills?
We should know by now that NATO kills
What is it?What is this beast
That amidst the carnage comes to feast
as in its bloody trough it swills?
We should know by now that NATO kills
The image of Obama smirking there
Reminding me of Tony Blair
With deep disgust my soul fills
We should know by now that NATO kills
Ever there the news to manage
Telling us of collateral damage
Their army of despicable, lying shills
We should know by now that NATO kills
What exotic locations to destroy!
What wonderful weapons to deploy!
Is this how they get their thrills?
We should know by now that NATO kills
What kind of mind could spawn
The idea of weapons to kill the unborn
And the marrow of my bones chills
We should know by now that NATO kills
So now the moment to end its reign
To be subject never again
To all its crimes and attendant ills
We should know by now that NATO kills
The Expert
Cailean Bochanan
The expert came, the expert spoke
A treat to us poor humble folk
Bowed down before him on our knees
In awe of his sheer expertise
It’s warming but it’s cooling too
Just let the expert talk us through
Drifting snows, icicles forming
Final proof of global warming
I must admit I often wonder
Looking out over frozen tundra
Is the expert always right?
Is it all a pile of shite?
Isn’t he really just a fraud
His sycophants on hand to applaud
A charlatan, a poseur, a shill
Vehicle of the ruler’s will?
A servant of power, he’s in the know
An agent of the NWO
That smug and supercilious smirk
Betrays la trahison des clerc
Ode to Britannia composed upon hearing a speech by the Right Honourable Anthony Blair praising our warlike spirit.
Land of Posh and Becks,
Fabled home of DIY and sex,
How to serve thee,
It is my quest,
Oh my country!
My joy, my happiness.
Here the human heart
has no reign,
only Sweet Reason,
the science of gain.
If you need a companion
a dog will do,
bringing a human touch
to those who pine overmuch.
For the ways of peace
are not for us;
poetry and love,
all that soppy stuff.
Not for us
those Frenchified arts-
give us a manly
game of darts!
Oh blessed land of martial fame,
No crime too great, done in thy name.
Oh warrior race!
Just one more generation,
Of murder and mayhem
To crown our nation.
So it is foretold by Tony Blair
(Worry not! He’s still there)
The enemy is at the gate,
The enemy is within.
Who could he be?
Surely not you and me!
So rally round,
Brits true and bold,
to do once more
what we are told!
Be true to thyself,
make war not love;
whilst Lord Tony looks down
from on high, above.
—————————–
Regime Change Begins at Home
Cailean Bochanan
Regime change, talk of the town,
of neocons, leftists and other clowns
calling for revolution
all around,
in every country but their own..
Regime change begins at home.
It’s easy to talk of revolution abroad.
It costs us nothing, is there even a reward?
The Liberals may whimper,
the Trots may moan.
Regime change begins at home.
An empire we’ve created,
so subtle and cruel,
the torturer it’s instrument,
no less the dupe and the fool.
This empire that rots like Venice and Rome.
Regime change begins at home.
The peoples of the earth
became our prey,
Prey to black usury,
sapping their life blood away.
Billions suffer as under our yoke they groan.
Regime change begins at home.
Whig finance,
Hidden hand behind all war.
Why weren’t you brought to account before?
King of the epoch
on your blood-spattered throne.
Regime change begins at home.
Iran, a great and noble nation,
now in our line of fire-
Oh,when of killing will we tire?
What can we do for our crimes to atone?
Regime change begins at home.
In the great land of two rivers,
you met your end.
Why do you still pretend?
Now that it’s clearly shown,
that your boasting is overblown.
Regime change begins at home.
Bomber Blair,
We’ve seen your like before,
Churchill and Cromwell,
mad-murdering dogs of yore.
In your notoriety you’re not alone.
Regime change begins at home.
War is a monster,
cult of destruction and hate
which murder without end
will never sate.
To end it ceaselessly we entone.
Regime change begins at home.
And so, my friends, this pledge we take,
a joyous revolution to make.
Do I have to spell it out,
shout it down a megaphone?
Regime change begins at home.
——————————–
Don’t Think About It!
Cailean Bochanan
don’t think about it-
the crimes we’ve done
don’t think about it-
there’s nowhere to run
don’t think about it-
dead Indian child
don’t think about it-
thoughts can run wild
don’t think about it-
there’s nothing to tell
don’t think about it-
we might rebel
don’t think about it-
our imminent demise
don’t think about it-
it will come as a surprise!
don’t think about it-
thinking is for fools
don’t think about it-
don’t break the rules
don’t think about it-
what got into your head?
don’t think about it-
didn’t you hear what I said?
don’t think about it-
don’t think again
don’t think about it-
we are all yes men
don’t think about it-
this world of strife
don’t think about it-
get a life!
Glasgow Arise! (Tune : The West’s asleep)
Here we are in Glasgow Town
A city now of world renown
So many eyes have seen the Clyde
La Passionara’s arms so open wide
Even though she lost her gun.
She stands beneath the Glasgow sun.
A tribute to the Spanish dead.
Our Glasgow was so proud and red.
When British tanks took George Square
Our revolution was born there.
The leader was the bold Maclean.
Remembered now though not in vain.
When a hundred thousand marched against the war
As Blair’s lies we did deplore.
When the Poll Tax we did dispute
It gave our city a new repute.
So here’s to you, the River Clyde
We shall breach the old divide.
With Green and Blue, a simple game.
Devoid of every violent shame.
So Glasgow arise to meet the new,
As schools are closing from our view.
The very first round of the fight.
To save our city from dreadful night.
Paul Anderson
July 2009
J
Soneto da Separação
De repente do riso fez-se o pranto
Silencioso e branco como a bruma
E das bocas unidas fez-se a espuma
E das mãos espalmadas fez-se o espanto.
[Suddenly, laughter became tears
Silent and white like mist
And lips united became foam
And hands clasped became fear]
De repente da calma fez-se o vento
Que dos olhos desfez a última chama
E da paixão fez-se o pressentimento
E do momento imóvel fez-se o drama.
[Suddenly calm became the wind
which takes the last flame from our eyes
And from passion came a presentiment
And from a moment of stillness, drama]
De repente, não mais que de repente
Fez-se de triste o que se fez amante
E de sozinho o que se fez contente.
[Suddenly, no more than suddenly,
he who was a lover became afflicted
And he who was contented was quite alone]
Fez-se do amigo próximo o distante
Fez-se da vida uma aventura errante
De repente, não mais que de repente.
[The close friend grew distant
life became a misadventure
Suddenly, no more than suddenly]
- To live is to lie
- Cailean Bochanan
- To live is to lie,
- Even if we have to die.
- We embrace with such celerity
This world of counter-verity.
I thought,” Let’s tell the truth
About the disappearing bee”,
But now, I fully realize
That was silly of me.
To live is to lie,
Even if it means to die.
.
.
.
.
Glimmers of Hope
by Paul Anderson
FIRST BREATH
Evading city fatigue, the all pervading bustle
To the air and the sea and the greenery
That is the dream that rises above the clouds
those dull rain-makers of nightful day
To gather thoughts anew, so fresh
To blether with a gentle soul mate
To laugh like Olympian gods in unison
at the bizarre foibles of men in ruins
This is breathing with each sadness
This is teasing out the hours
catching nettles as they pass
This is sitting on the sea bank
toying with a blade of grass
BREATH 2
Stoating in the city as is the habit of clientele
Listening to the inner angst of spectacular natives
The vital statistics of a national nightmare
Honing in on the groundswell of discontent
catching snatches of barking broken hearts
Irate tirades over last evening’s viewing
The diaspora of outcast and vagabond assertion
Taking the high ground in an empty dispute
Placing inner bets on the outcome of a non-event
This is the beautiful voice of suicidal despair
running away from its sordid conclusion
Dancing, forever wanton, but dancing !
LAST BREATH
It is worth a passing mention
The political situation
Vertical structures of Power and Wealth
If there is something more absurd
It is the claim that this human nature
Most people are inclined towards horizontal positions:
From lying down to speaking freely
From sleeping rough to quilted bed.
For every corpse and lover’s rest -
Equality in a real way is human nature’s only test
We who love the world,
knowing this one alone,
here lie all our hopes
only here our home,
hold dear our sacred
share of life,
keep the candle burning bright
of freedom
in this darkest night,
and song,
in the face of death,
of everlasting life
the breath.
Cailean Bochanan
Ploughman, proud of the running furrow
Peace will bring great fields to you,
And,oh, what bounty the earth will yield.
In golden days when the sun stands high
And the sky is bright with gratitude.
The leaves on the tree your deeds will know
And shade with love the path you go,
Keen-eyed son of the soil,
And for your arduous ,
nurturing toil,
In days of sense there will be a world of recompense.
Miner,comrade in the deep earth,
Peace through darkness radiant gleams
And shining yet for your hands to shape
Are Mankind’s treasured untapped seams!
They stretch the days of human glory
Here upon the earth below,
The fields of grain away fair above
The flag of Truth unfurled,
And you shall walk, new kinship chasing
Passing insults fools have hurled.
Teacher,tutor men of learning,
Guarding youth from wild-eyed fears,
Steer there innocence to goodness
And stem their apprehensive tears!
Make real the dreams which their young vision
Fashions in the summer street,
when the smiling world is a joyous promise,
A glorious garden at their feet!
Let no beast for greed or malice
Destroy those gentle dreams they weave
Or bring a horror to their lives
The mind of Man dare not conceive!
Give peace her place in childhood’s story,
The queen adored by all is she,
She walks their garden, all weeds wilting
Before her radiant modesty!
And such a queen will hold the class room
In Summer cool and Winter warm,
And children proud to walk beside her.
Will thank you with their young hearts charm.
Writer, Artist, music maker,
Unite with artisan and baker,
We still can save the Earth,
And all the power in our hearts
Must come to universal birth
Then what once was but a human wish
At this most potent hour!
Shall be a multi-coloured flower,
A slender stem and tend tender leaf,
But, oh, what fragrance there,
Its blossom shall delight the heart
Of Good folk everywhere
Men and mothers of all nations,
Whatever rank whatever station,
Weave a garland o’er the globe.
That Peace will wear that lovely robe
Among her sons!
Men of honour, men of worth
Sinking low or striving forth,
Peace can prove your labour’s truth,
Renew your love, renew your youth
In days that dance ahead!
The Earth can soon aspire high
But those of joy the day we’ve seen.
The heart of Man forever green.
With Peace And Progress wed!
I see an international crowd
of colours faces, garments, creeds
Place hatred in its burial shroud
And end the reign of Greed!
I see them linked from land to land
Across the seven seas
While in their midst the petals grow,
The sun-bright Flower of Peace,
The shining flower, the lovely flower,
The sun-bright flower of Man,
With roots enriched with self-less deeds
Since history began;
That bloosom grows in every land
It decks the earth with grace.
Entwining now the human heart
To save the Human Race
Freddy Anderson
Far and wide, in vain, I sought to find
common purpose, affinities of mind,
spirits to decry our decaying age
No peace we’ll find but in the grave.
Times of complacency, times of depair,
the empty chatter, the bewildered stare.
Now the fool, now the knave.
No peace we’ll find but in the grave.
All dissolves before our touch,
our coldness, lest we feel too much,
assails us on this barren stage
No peace we’ll find but in the grave.
The allure of beauty, deadly its spell,
but of what it speaks none can tell,
impotent our arts, we’re left to rave.
No peace we’ll find but in the grave.
The troubador’s song amidst violent times,
woven with the golden thread of rhyme,
nor this from taint his dream can save,
No peace we’ll find but in the grave.
Perhaps tomorrow I’ll return to fight
the legions of those whose might is right,
but now I hear the wild wind rage,
No peace we’ll find but in the grave.
Jamieson MacKinley
The deathbed poem (c.1729) of Aodhagán Ó Rathaille
“Stadfadsa feasta – is gar dom éag gan mhoill
ó treascradh dragain Leamhan, Léin is Laoi;
rachad ‘na bhfasc le searc na laoch don chill,
na flatha fá raibh mo shean roimh éag do Chríost.”
“I will stop now – my death is hurrying near
now that the warriors of the Laune, Lein and Lee are destroyed;
I will follow the beloved among heroes to the grave,
those princes under whom were my ancestors before the death of Christ.”
This brief poem was the basis for another one by Yeats- perhaps his greatest.
The Curse of Cromwell
by William Butler Yeats.
.
YOU ask what – I have found, and far and wide I go:
Nothing but Cromwell’s house and Cromwell’s murderous crew,
The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay,
And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen, where are they?
And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride -
His fathers served their fathers before Christ was crucified.
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?
All neighbourly content and easy talk are gone,
But there’s no good complaining, for money’s rant is on.
He that’s mounting up must on his neighbour mount,
And we and all the Muses are things of no account.
They have schooling of their own, but I pass their schooling by,
What can they know that we know that know the time to die?
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?
But there’s another knowledge that my heart destroys,
As the fox in the old fable destroyed the Spartan boy’s
Because it proves that things both can and cannot be;
That the swordsmen and the ladies can still keep company,
Can pay the poet for a verse and hear the fiddle sound,
That I am still their servant though all are underground.
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?
I came on a great house in the middle of the night,
Its open lighted doorway and its windows all alight,
And all my friends were there and made me welcome too;
But I woke in an old ruin that the winds howled through;
And when I pay attention I must out and walk
Among the dogs and horses that understand my talk.
O what of that, O what of that,
What is there left to say?
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
BY PAUL ANDERSON
Through the vastness of the universe, I come to settle
on you
like a loved one, another alien, a target of my
dreams,
whizzing on the electric giant milky way,
sneezing out yon satellites and rockets.
You would think we owned the place.
We the mere borrowers of time.
I wander with you, I spin with you
Alas like Gulliver, among the little people,
I cast my net far and wide.
As much of humanity has Died, unnecessarily.
Here in my lofty tower of tears.
I bemoan the world of Greed.
I grasp for Thor’s hammer
only to find thats been stolen too.
By the State Circus, where most of my allies have
fled.
Sometimes I wonder why they ran away.
Could it be that there heads are full of mince?
Or some other form of lacklustre nonsense.
Were they to mention the disappearing bees,
or even the vanishing wild salmon
all so lost they cannot find their home
Are they too so affected by electrosmog they refuse to
think?
And by this omission, no longer are the opposition,
but a gang of yesterday’s men and women
fondling Liberty.
Are our leaders heads all gone
dancing with the dying swan, playing cat or mouse,
Or are they like the unmasked bat
cheating to find out where they are at?
It would make one cry.
Aye! Even Shout!
What glory can there be?
Time warped in history.
Formal greetings now the whole of politics
”Goodbye Mother Earth!” They kiss their asses.
As pollinators at peril pass a death sentence on the
human race.
PAUL ANDERSON wrote this poem July 1, 2008
I am Celtic and shameless
as though I was the very hound of CuCulain
as though I dug the grave that saw the bones of Finn Mac Cumhail
To tell you what
I’ d be better thinking of yon older times
when I drank two lakes of wine
(you say only two lakes)
I ate every goat and tiny mouse
between John O Groats and Clear Island
on just one Sunday
Now I stand here
filling gaped mouths
with tales of great adventures
making muse and great delight
of detail small but bountiful
I ‘ll tell you this
your heathen shylock ways are gone forever
your dismal salt of the earth will taste like sugar
You have got no chance at all
So away with your nuclear bombs
and precise missiles
No force on earth
is worth my spit
Paul Anderson August 2000
by James Thomson
Q. What is meant by the phrase “by peaceful means”?
A. “By peaceful means” is a special United Nations phrase meaning “No food or medicine to be allowed in” to a country. If for instance Iraq, Palestine, and Cuba had a disagreement with Great Britain and were able to blockade the country from receiving any food or medicine, this would be called “pursuing their disagreement with Great Britain by peaceful means.”
Q. Why did Pope Urban the Second launch the First Crusade?
A. “To restore peace and stability in the Middle East”.
Q. Who said “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth”?
A. This was said by Jesus Christ on the Mount of Olives. He was quoting in anticipation George Bush, who used the words in his address to the American people after ordering the mass bombing of Iraq.
Q. What flies from Gloucestershire?
A. This might be any one of a number of migratory birds of Gloucestershire which winter in the Mediterranean or Africa. For example, the Garden Warbler, the Night Jar, the Swift, the Stonechat, or the Whinchat with its snappy tic-tac and soft peu, and its 5-7 pale blue eggs laid in a cupped surface on the ground under shrubbery.
Q. What do you call something that flies from Gloucestershire to a place where it “minces everything on the ground within an area one mile wide by three miles long”?
A. A human being.
Q. What do you call the things that mince everything on the ground within an area one mile wide by three miles long?
A. “Conventional weapons”.
Q. What flies across France?
A. Only birds, planes, human beings and conventional weapons are allowed to fly across France.
Q. Sphinx: What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?
A. American pilot: – “A cockroach”.
Q. What is the percentage of people in command of the British Army who have working-class accents?
A. I’m sorry, he would have been pleased to speak to you, but he is in bed with laryngitis.
Q. What is the percentage of British troops in the front line who have public school accents?
A. I’m sorry, he would have been pleased to speak to you, but he is in bed with laryngitis.
Q. What do you get after three weeks if you lock a million and a half people up for 24 hours a day?
A. Thirteen billion dollars.
Q. What did the Scottish National Party say when Iraq annexed Kuwait?
A. “It’s Scotland’s oil!”
Q. Pete asks: “If Marconi invented the radio, and Winston Churchill invented Kuwait, who invented the steam engine?”
A. James Watt. And he was Scottish.
Q. What is the etymology of the words “Saudi Arabia”?
A. “Saudi Arabia” is an abbreviation from an ancient Arabic phrase which translates literally as “The Aramco Oil Company International”.
Q. In which book does Biggles have a dogfight with the Airforce of the World Enemy, thus helping to save the world at great personal risk?
A. Biggles Goes to War, Biggles Flies South, Biggles Flies North etc.
Q. In which book does the Airforce of the World Enemy run away, so Biggles bombs cities, towns, roads, bridges, telephone exchanges, water supplies and electricity supplies, so that the survivors have difficulty getting food and the injured have difficulty getting treatment?
A. The Minutes of the British War Cabinet January-February 1991.
Q. What did the Labour Shadow Cabinet say when it realised it was an essential part of a Government of National Unity waging planned genocide?
A. Shhh.
Q. What did you used to call someone who should feel guilty about their country’s past policy of genocide?
A. A German.
Q. What do you call a quarter of a million Germans marching in 1991 against genocide?
A. “Anti-semitic”.
Q. What do you do when a president gasses 5,000 people in his own country?
A. Show the bodies on television – but keep selling him arms.
Q. What do you do when a president’s troops invade Panama killing another 5,000 people?
A. Don’t show the bodies on television.
Q. What does “control of the airwaves” mean?
A. It means suspending oil adverts until people can watch them and keep their food down at the same time.
A. The telephones sell-off, the gas sell-off, the water sell-off, the electricity sell-off, the Tory leadership contest, the total destruction of Iraq… Q. What is the question?
Q. What did Britain take part in on Tuesday, February 19th 1991?
A. It took part in what was at that point “one of the most ferocious attacks on the centre of Baghdad”, using bombers and Cruise Missiles fired from ships.
Q. What did John Major say about the bombing the next day?
A. He said: “One is bound to ask about attacks such as these: What sort of people is it that can carry them out? They certainly are consumed with hate. They are certainly sick of mind, and they can be certain of one thing – they will be hunted and hunted until they are found.” (He was talking about 5lb of explosive left in a litter-basket at Victoria Station in London. This killed one person and critically injured three.)
Q. “Many of these modern weapons show a considerable amount of imagination in their construction. I was told the other day that some rockets can each saturate an area the size of 60 football pitches. Is this true?”
A. “Yes. They’re fired from multiple rocket launch systems, and twelve can be fired at a time. Every rocket breaks up into 600 smaller bombs or “bomblets” before they land. They’re sometimes jocularly called “the honourable members” after the honourable members of the British House of Commons that voted for the war. You could maybe have a think about that next time you’re watching Prime Minister’s Question Time on tv!”
Q. What does “I will only continue to support the war if it stays within United Nations guidelines” mean?
A. It means “I support the mass bombing and total destruction of Iraq but I do not support the sending in of armed human beings.”
Q. What does United Nations Resolution 242 state?
A. Shhh.
Q. What do you do with wee babies, four year olds, five year olds, grannies, people whom you would get on with fine if you knew them, people who would get on your nerves, football supporters, teachers, tradesmen, shopkeepers, writers, unemployed people, people that work with their hands, people that work with pens or computers, janitors, directors of firms, managers, people that work at home, bus drivers, taxi drivers, actors, electricians, policemen, clergy, workaholics, feckless wasters, boys out of school into uniform, older soldiers, musicians, alcoholics, geniuses, idiots, people who don’t like the light being turned off at night, people who “prefer the old ways”, people who whistle in the street?
A. Ehm… What country are they from?
(et cetera, ad infinitum)
February 28th – March 20th 1991
Are you not weary of bloody days?
Of monotonic destruction
feeding your corruption.
Seeking your emancipation
in the world’s devastation.
Are you not weary of bloody days?
Are you not tired of satanic ways?
Recoiling in fear
as the light comes near:
the light that shines
on your unholy designs.
Are you not tired of satanic ways?
Do you not fear what history will say?
The verdict on your crimes
of happier times;
the contempt that will crown
your evil reknown.
Do you not fear what history will say?
Does the toll of doom not you dismay?
In this, the hour
of the ebbing of your power:
don’t you hear the tread
of those you left for dead?
Does the toll of doom not you dismay?
Cailean Bochanan
Tsunamis and storms,
Floods and plagues,
Locusts in swarms.
They say this is why
We’ve all got to die.
If it’s not aids
It will be some other panic.
What about birdflu
For a suitable epidemic?
They say this is why
We’ve all got to die.
But the people of Iraq
Are dying already.
The bombs raining down
On their daily hell.
No one says why
They’ve all got to die.
Cailean Bochanan
Whither hast thou fled? Oh the humble bee!
Leaving us only the bumble bee,
Great toiler we appreciate fully your endeavour,
Pollinating crops (whatever the weather)
We regret you don’t like
Our electro-magnetic smog
Making clear summer days like thickest fog.
I address you now
Knowing you are few,
If it’s any consolation
It’s killing us too.
Cailean Bochanan
(from a Gaelic fragment and to the traditional air for it)
Donny O’Rourke
For Eddie McGuire
Great is the cause of my sorrow
Weary the weight of my woe
Will we never be done with despairing
Of what winter has brought to Glencoe?
The king and his Campbells have curdled
The milk in the dead widow’s breast
Clan Donald’s orphaned bairns butchered
Their ghosts and our grievance won’t rest!
Wild as the wind is our mourning
Empty our hearts as the glen
Gone like the last light of summer
All murdered, MacDonald’s brave men
Great is the cause of my sorrow
I watched my whole family die
Yet love’s the only true vengeance
‘Peace’, the best battle cry
Great is the cause of my sorrow
Greater the need to forgive
In each steading razed without mercy
Justice is all that will live
Can nothing be learned from our losses
Sorrow and sadness so deep?
Wars will be waged without pity
Til our leaders are taught how to weep
Warmongers forever forgetting
What mothers eternally know
Iraq, The Lebanon, Afghanistan
The whole world one Glencoe
Great is the cause of my sorrow
The piper’s lament will not cease
While every child’s a MacDonald
Bombed in the name of peace
Marriages turned into funerals
In the Highlands or Iraq
Knives in the night
Or stealth bombers
Iinnocence under attack
Great is the casue of my sorrow
Weary the weight of my woe
Will we never be done with despairing
Of what winter has brought to Glencoe?
This poem by Donny O’Rourke develops a fragment of an old lament on the Massacre of Glencoe (when dozens of members of a clan were killed by Government troops in the highlands of Scotland in 1692). Written in 2006 it links that past with a turbulent present. It was first performed in September 2006 during a performing tour of poetry and music given by Donny O’Rourke and Eddie McGuire in the Navajo national territory in New Mexico/Arizona, visiting the teacher training college and schools. It evoked great empathy as there are many similar episodes in Native American history: at the same time as Glencoe, the Spanish were brutally repressing the Pueblo Indians who had previously defeated the invaders and established their own republic, holding out for 12 years: the Navajo maintained armed resistance well into the 20th century. These days the example of countries like Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba is re-inspiring the old spirit of resistance as the USA shows signs of crumbling…
Donny sung his new words to the old melody – that probably predates the Massacre of Glencoe – Murt Ghlinne Comhann (Death in Glen Coe) with accompaniment from Eddie on flute and small harp (Clarsach). This tune was originally revived in the 1970s by The Whistlebinkies.
To live is to lie ,
Even if they must die.
Are we bringing peace to Iraq,
Through torture and bombing them back
To pre-historic times?
Let me show you that I’m learning:
These are not war crimes!
To live is to lie.
I’m not quite sure why.
I dreamt they fixed the Scottish election
And now they’re holding me under section
I’m not sure which of the
Mental Health Act, Scotland, 2002.
You’d better be careful
That doesn’t
Happen to you.
To live is to lie,
Not ours to reason why.
So come gather round
and let’s make up some more
about Tony Blair’s legacy,
how McConnel’s not a bore.
Such scope for imagination,
The very lifeblood of a nation!
Oh! Ye strangers to the truth
Give me the grand design,
Made up on the hoof,
Whatever comes to mind!
And if it be but arrant pish?
That, it is our most fervent wish.
To live is to lie,
All that is truth must die.
Cailean Bochanan