This was written for The Festival of Fools; a political 'Living Newspaper' performed at the end of the year from the mid-sixties in a pub theatre in London. The author of the song and the poem escapes me at the moment; Evan - Euan - something like that. They don't come any more powerful IMO. Jim Carroll Disc of sun in the belching smoke, Blazing huts where the children choke, Burning flesh and blackened blood Charred and blistered like smouldering wood Oh brother, oh brother, did you weep, Oh brother, oh brother can you sleep. Wall eyed moon in the wounded night Touching poisoned fields with blight, Showing a ditch were a dead girl lies Courted by ants and hungry flies. Oh brother, oh brother, did you weep, Oh brother, oh brother can you sleep. Scream of pain on the morning breeze; Thunder of bombs in a grove of trees Hymn of rubble and powdered stone, Mangled flesh and splintered bone. Oh brother, oh brother, did you weep, Oh brother, oh brother can you sleep. Programmed war, efficiency teams Punch cards fed to thinking machines, Computered death and the murder plan Total destruction of Viet Nam Oh brother, have they got no shame, Oh Jesus, they're killing in my name. Followed by part of the poem: Let us, for a moment, suspend Our Parliariment of Fools For the space of time that lies between The impulse and the act Of lifting glass to mouth, Or holding lighted match to cigarette, Briefly, that is, in the hope our ears Will catch the dry weeping of the dead Each year there are many dead. The annual harvest of lives Which have passed from seedling state Through growth to flowering, From thence to the bearing of fruit And then to dry, narcessant autumn – The natural dead, And there are the others, those Who are prematurely trampled down, Or withered before flowers spring From the bud. It is they who weep; The awful silent weeping of the dead. That they had names is obvious, And it can be presumed that somone, Father, mother, husband, sweetheart, lover, Their closest kin, know them well And habitually addressed them by affectionate diminutives. To us, their names were strange And lay awkwardly on the tongue, So they remain anonymous – "Those people who were killed on August 9th When bombs fell on that town in Viet Nam What do they call it ?" Or the ones who died at Stanleyville In March, or was it April ? They died as ants die under the gardeners foot, Unnoticed. They screamed, moaned, shrieked, implored, Raved in delirium, wailed like infants, Wept or cursed………and died. Those nameless, prostrate men of The agency photographs, Anticipating with fierce, rolling eyes The lethal boots of Congo mercenaries; Or standing, garlanded with ropes, In pre-execution photos for men Skilled in the use of delicate equipment. From the newsprint they appear To look through us as if we don't exist, Knowing they are beyond succour, Expecting no manumission Of the sentence our silence has decreed. Do they see anything beyond the grass and trees ? Do they hear sounds other than those Made by the crickets and low-flying beetles ? All of which will still be there When they, the men, are gone. Do you ever wonder if their need for justice, Their beliefs in the ultimate decency of human relationships Survived those last few moments When the casual cruelty of their enemies Appeared to be the sole reality ? Anthropoligically speaking They were one, two halves Which made a whole. Both sides belonged.to homo sapiens; They walked upright, Had fashioned tools to work with, Developed elaborate languages With which they could communicate The most subtle nuances of thought. The executioners were, as the phrase goes, Civilised. Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Bach, were theirs And Newton, Democritus, Planck and Heisenberg; They had domesticated plants and animals, Tamed rivers, plundered mountains, Irrigated barren places, Learned the secrets of flight from birds And explored the primeval constituents of matter. But when it came to the point, None of these things. Was nearly so significant As the sudden, downward thrust Of field boot on a naked skull.
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