Vagrant Magritte
© Chris Port, 5th July 2011
Vagrant Magritte
Vagrant Magritte
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In the June heat
Vagrant Magritte
paints the pavements
an odd fish
like a moon who’s
lost his planet
and just orbits
an abyss.
Lunatics live
in the crevice
where a minute
stops a day
under bridges
sunless faces
like crevasses
drop away.
It takes talent
and bank balance
to keep spinning
all your plates
and you’ll wobble
like a bottle
if you step in
someone’s face
Do not weep, dear
men just sleep here
and your rash tears
wake his thirst
but there’s no beer
without cash, dear
so there’s no beer
for the cursed.
On his birthday
men did once say
hip hip hooray
long ago
as he listens
to the distance
for a song he
used to know.
BBC News 4 July 2011
ReplyDelete"Veterans battle homelessness as they return from war"
By Peter Bowes BBC News, Los Angeles
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13983279
This makes me so angry. America is the richest nation in the world. Britain is the 6th. There is no morally defensible reason for ANYONE to be homeless, let alone people we put in harm’s way. Why are we abandoning our wounded to die in the streets? What are our young men dying for? Corporate profits? Who is the real enemy? Does the ‘War on Terror’ need to be refocused?
The Bells Of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-UHaCZSBeM&feature=related
GERMANY. I’m a patriot, but I’m also a businessman; my stock-holders must have dividends. If I didn’t make the profits, the Russians would. The people who ought to be shot are those who break international agreements. Germany and France agreed not to bombard the iron-ore works at Briey and Thionville for the duration – and some idiot pilot bombs them. A Frenchman.
AMERICA. What happened to him?
FRANCE. He was court-martialled.
(From ‘Oh What A Lovely War’)
Remember Remembrance Day? A few weirdy-beardies burned a rag as a pathetic PR stunt. The Daily Mail photographed them in close-up to maximize the outrage. Hysterical ‘patriots’ shrieked for a pogrom. Where is their outrage now, the disgusting f**king hypocrites? Talentless Gleesters wobble their arses in the faces of young men going up to the front, but not those crawling back. Oh well, nothing new there then.
ReplyDelete"We need recruits!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIEwKyxr2bU
‘Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen
ReplyDeletehttp://users.fulladsl.be/spb1667/cultural/owen/disabled.html
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.
About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim, -
In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands;
All of them touch him like some queer disease.
There was an artist silly for his face,
For it was younger than his youth, last year.
Now, he is old; his back will never brace;
He's lost his colour very far from here,
Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race
And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.
One time he liked a blood-smear down his leg,
After the matches, carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. - He wonders why.
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts,
That's why; and may be, too, to please his Meg;
Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts
He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.
Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt,
And Austria's, did not move him. And no fears
Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.
Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.
Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
To-night he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?
‘Suicide in the Trenches’ by Siegfried Sassoon
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/suicide.html
I knew a simple soldier boy
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.
Superb film opening to a superb song. 'Lord of War' opens with 'The Life of a Bullet' to the iconic protest song "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHn1zogeyO4&feature=related
Every year, over $1.5 trillion are spent on weaponry worldwide (2.7% of global GDP). Britain has the 3rd highest defence budget in the world (after America and China) and is the world’s 5th largest arms supplier.