Unfriendly Bombs

Occasionally I will dabble a little in poetry. And on Wednesday, after watching the documentary Racing Extinction and hearing the news that the British parliament had voted for air strikes in Syria, I dabbled. I was perhaps feeling things were a little bleak and the world was just teetering on the brink. For some reason I couldn’t get the words of John Betjeman’s ‘Slough‘ out of my head, and went to work.

I realise this blog is meant to be about monsters and bogeymen. But the more I think about it, both can probably be found in Syria right now. So perhaps this isn’t quite so out of place as it may appear.

Syria

Come unfriendly bombs and fall on Syria

Might as well join this hysteria

Mark it as a disaster area

Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens

Evil doers barely in their teens

Lost hearts, lost lives, lost lands, lost dreams

Lost minds, lost breath

Mess up the mess we’ve all talked down

Reduce to rubble a once safe town

And replace with new enemies of the crown

For twenty years

And get that man with darkened skin

The likes of who must never win

We’ll never hear over all our din

Their women’s tears

And smash their chains but keep the yoke

And smash our economy in a single stroke

Let them become our dirty smoke

And make them yell

But spare the ones who’ve had it bad

This is the action of a stinking cad

It’s not their fault that we are mad

They’ve tasted hell

It’s not their fault they do not know

We dismiss their plight on radio

It’s not their fault we made them go

To bury their dead

And talk of court and words of liars

In wrecks of burnt out cars

Those who daren’t look up to see the stars

But bleed instead

In labour camps they do not dare

Speak out to us as in we glare

And dry their eyes to match our stare

And silence their wails

Come unfriendly bombs and fall on Syria

Get it ready for the next era

This is a case of mass oblivia

The earth exhales.