Richard Macwilliam » Political Poems

Chicken-Hawk

admin — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:52:54 +0000

The chicken-hawk is flightless,
Running on scared little feet:
Yellow-bellied, it doesn’t soar,
But pecks cravenly at the ground,
Its loud and coarse voice
Calling fire down on its enemies
As it scratches and tears at all who dare oppose it
In the great Fight
It leads from the back.

The chicken-hawk is a leader
Of young boys with guns,
A brave and fearless warrior
Rewriting history in the image of the films it saw
When itself lying low in a padded nest
Far from the sounds of War.

Do not be deceived by the chicken-hawk:
Its words mean nothing but fear and terror
And its cunning brings only despair.

A warmongering President and Vice-President

Welcome to Tanzania!

admin — Sun, 23 May 2010 19:28:56 +0000

Welcome to Tanzania -
Here poverty is so way off the scale that normal poverty looks rich.

Welcome to Tanzania -
The military air-traffic control system that brought you here
Was FOUR TIMES overpriced.

Welcome to Tanzania -
Jack Straw, Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon
Are pleased to save 250 jobs in the Isle of Wight!

Welcome to Tanzania -
I wonder how many people will therefore die ?

Welcome to Tanzania -
Your arrival was safeguarded by a £40 million loan from Barclays Bank,
Our ethical foreign policy allowed you to fly,
Courtesy of BAE.

Welcome to Tanzania -
Here in la-la land
We are helped in our la-la view of the world
By the la-la policies
Of the la-la folks across the Great Water.

Welcome to Tanzania!

Sing it now: la la la, Tanzania !

A glorious white elephant involving a military products company that is regularly accused of corruption and a bunch of low-quality politicians who were later involved in the Iraq war.

Welcome to Woomera

admin — Sun, 23 May 2010 19:18:58 +0000

Good day, mate, and welcome to Australia!
Glad you could make it mate to Woomera!

Welcome mate, we’re gonna decide your fate
In this place of hate -
Yeah, welcome to Woomera!

Oh, welcome to Australia,
Which we ain’t gonna share with yer -
No, welcome to Woomera!

Listen mate, it’s like this mate,
We stole from the darkies mate and we know that’s not great
But the door’s shut now mate and you’re just gonna have to wait whilst we decide your fate
In our place of Hate -
Oh, welcome to Woomera!

No one gets into Australia,
Immigration time’s over.

Yeah, it doesn’t seem fair at all, mate,
Poor bastard you’re in a state,
It’s totally out of order, mate,
But I don’t make the rules
And though I can see you’ve struggled to get here
I guess – maybe – it’s just that we ain’t gotta know yer,
And sadly, we ain’t gonna, ‘cos immigration time’s over,
We ain’t gonna share with yer -
Yeah, welcome to Woomera.

Woomera, a prison camp for non-whites, closed in 2003 for revealing too clearly Australian xenophobia.

The Thermobarbaric bomb

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:57:54 +0000

The Thermobarbaric bomb
Sucks air from caves,
Collpases lungs,
Ruptures liver and spleens,
Bursts eardrums.

The Thermobarbaric bomb
Is deployed with great glee
By the men of the West
From the land of the Free
In support of their
Great Democracy.

The Thermobarbaric bomb
Joins the Daisycutter that can destroy a small village
And it joins special forces firing into a compound
In a massacre they won’t allow Amnesty to check up on
And it joins rockets fired into dungeons (after the burning oil)

In a great
Dehumanisation
That just doesn’t fit in
With the warm, kindly and caring image
America and Britain
Have of themselves.

The Thermobarbaric bomb, in fact,
Is by far a more accurate indication
Of our civilisation.

Dec. 20001

If the Russkies had ever used the thermobaric bomb we’d have been outraged.

The War

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:38:10 +0000

The War brought out their misfortunes,
Laid all their problems bare,
Showed all their trappings air
Blown off in the first light breeze
(Unfortunately this was a thunderstorm)
And their every worldly care
Was but a Bottom’s Fart
Exploding in their faces.

Naturally, the best were shot, sent to the Front
Where All Good Men Go:
And those left behind
(Too young, too scared, too vicious)
Had to make the best of what was left.

This wasn’t difficult -
There wasn’t a lot.

THE FIRST BOMB
DESTROYED MAJOR CITIES
And what little food was left,
Radioactive,
Had to be eaten with care -
Because it was the last thing that would ever be eaten.

The Old Women wailed, but they had been the ones
That started it all:
A million seething hates
Builds up One Big Picture Of Hate,
And they had hated – boy, how they had hated!
(Never believe that women are weaker than men.)

Not that the men had been perfect -
They’d stirred the pot too
(But never at home, that had been women’s work).

Oh yes, to blame it all on the men is unfair,
Though the ones for Peace had soon succumbed to their base emotions …
It was the Falkland’s all over again,
Writ large,
Or Diana the Image, in a nation with nowhere to go -
Mob rule,
Quite perfect
For starting a war …

Still , what’s a war when it’s on somebody else’s land ?

Only this War
Had Been Over Here.

The elections had helped -
So near, so little time,
Something
Had Had To Be Done !

When the moment for peace came
The Prime Minister Walked Away
And History (there wasn’t much left)
Would have been revised, the moment air-brushed out
So that all who could read the text-books would see
How It Wasn’t Our Fault.

There now – it’s done:
No great celebrations, no thanking God for our victory
(For God is righteous and favours whites, Anglo-Saxons and the wealthy, in that order,
Praise Him, for he is Mighty and will help Us,
But not our Enemies
Who must suffer and perish in Eternal Fire …)

Well, of course the fires are out now,
They only last a week or two and then the firestorms
Are done.

And the politicians – well, what can one say ?
They were never of much use and now
They’re of none.

Still, Life Goes On.
(My charred limb fell off yesterday,
But the rest of me’s O.K.)

Bit late for changing things now, really,
But I pray – well, naturally, I pray:
There’s not a lot else to do.

Once the screams had died with their owners
There was only silence,
Apart from the black rain and the odd ferocious wind.

I pray, yes, I pray,
I pray for Hope, although really that’s all Gone,
And for a Peaceful Death
(Though Death doesn’t bother me anymore, I’m too numb)
And for my children who all died -
Though one of them still shrieks in my head.

Hell, I’ve got it lucky, really -
At least I’m almost sane.

That was one thing I was never shown how to do -
I was never told how to pray.
Now, of course, I’m learning fast,
But then there were too many idiots who’d staked a prior claim,
Too many groups with Copyright Names on their own Wise One -
And I avoided that strange game.
I only wanted a God who spoke to me (preferably peaceably),
Someone or Something to set me free -
And there wasn’t one.

So I’ve invented One.

He’s called God,
And we try and listen to each other:
And I thank God,
And God then thanks me.

There now -
I’m done.

18/11/99

Anyone who had to live through the Thatcher years can relate to how easily and conveniently wars can be cooked up.

Poor Young Men

admin — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:33:21 +0000

Poor young men.

Driven by sexual hunger they watch the girls in the streets,
Their clothes, the way they walk,
Imagine them undressed and lying beneath them,
See them – in their minds eyes – in the shower,
Naked and wet and slippery,
Covered in soap.

Poor young men.

Their culture says ‘NO!’
And the religion they half-believe in says ‘NO!’
And so they try – at first -
Seducing those women who belong outside their world,
Who they can later despise and call loose, immoral,
Treat as dirt,
Not tell their mothers about,
Pretend that nothing – really – ever happened.

Poor young men.

It doesn’t work.

And as they eye the women with hunger
Their hunger turns into a rage,
To furious, incandescent anger (well, it has to go somewhere)
And they begin to insult women in the streets -
‘Slags!’ they scream in their sexual frustration,
‘Whores!’ they shout out,
Furious at their unsatisfied desires,
‘Immoral!’ they scream whilst their loins burn,
‘Bitches!’

This isn’t really enough and so to get closer
And to show how much they hate women (loose women)
They join the religious police.

Poor young men.

Now they can stare and peer,
Insult
And maybe even swear in holy anger,
Now they can get up close and critical and intrusive,
Dirty talk, really, but legitimised,
And noone can question them.

Poor young men.

Some go in in for physical contact,
The slapping and tearing off of clothes in righteous rage,
And the most daring even insist on high-minded
Strip-searches.

Poor young men.

Poor. poor young men!

Young men in the religious police frisking young women. Nothing to do with sexual frustration at all.

It’s Somebody Else’s Turn – or, Pax America Bye-Bye

admin — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 16:12:49 +0000

Amazing how every country in the world has had it’s Empire.

There’s Egypt, of course,
And Rome,
Turkey,
Britain,
France,
Spain,
Those Viking types,
The Greeks (remember them ?)
The Aztecs and Mayans and Incas,
India,
Germany (had a go!),
And no doubt Africa has had its’ conquerors
(Mali, Ghana, Songhai ?),
Japan’s been there,
Persia (Iran),
Crete,
The Arabs
(Whose Islam brought Optics, Music, Medicine, Chemistry, Mathematics, Astronomy
And a civilisation more tolerant even then than Christianity),
China
Russia

And now we’re in Pax America -

So tell me, America, will YOU be leaving behind culture and wisdom,
Or will it be just a string of burnt-out McDonalds in a concrete desert,
A remembrance of arrogance, meddling and indifference
And a world struggling to recover from your foreign affairs ?

Because it’s somebody else’s turn now, Uncle Sam,
And if you’re ever going to do the right thing
(Looking after the world instead of trying to destroy it)
Then you’d better get off your backside and start doing it now.

Every nation has its empire, the equivalent of fifteen minutes of fame.

Peacenik gun

admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:58:15 +0000

The Peacenik gun
Blasts from far away,
Designed to ‘ricochet’,
The Peacenik gun is error-proof:

Which is to say
All doubts can be removed -
‘It was an accident!’

The Peacnik gun
Fires lies and disingenuity,
Muddies, slimes and blurs -
Best handled by trained snipers without compassion.

The Peacenik gun by its’ very nature spouts hate,
But no-one’s figured out the recoil -
Which is tremendous.

The Peacenik gun in the wrong hands
(Say a mass-murderer and his minions)
Recoils very, very slowly.

This is a Good Thing for Peaceniks,
Peace activists and people with morality,
But a bad thing
For Those Who Only Understand Force.

Praise the Peacenik gun!

One end fires Hate!

The other end delivers Love!

2003?

The Peacenik gun is a gun designed to kill Peaceniks – it’s a metaphor for violent mass-murderers killing those who oppose them and using lies and slime to cover their tracks.

However, the recoil from their amorality is a slow and deep-seated distaste for their world-views and activities.

This is my house

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:38:02 +0000

This is my house, and you are a guest in it.
Please – leave when you are no longer welcome …….
I will have no hesitation in using force -
Beneath my smile lies
Fear
And
Hate.

This is my house: it needs rebuilding -
I value you
For your skills:
But without those skills
You
Are
Nothing.

This is my house: you are not welcome,
Yet my morality insists that you stay -
But
Only
One
At
A
Time.

This is my house: we are friends,
And you can stay forever -
But only because
We
Are
Friends.

This is my house: we are brother and sister.
You are most welcome.
Live here and join our family.
We will argue: we will love: but most of all
We
Will
Live.

This is my house. Next door is another house.
I have been in that other house.
That other house is part of my street.
It is a nice house.
I
Like
My
Street.

Dec.00

We can call immigrants ‘guests’, because when we’ve had enough of a ‘guest’ we can blame the ‘guest’ if they don’t leave. The language that a nation uses is very revealing about what’s going on underneath. ‘Framing’ is where you get people to look through a lens in order to control them or their reactions; politicians and the media in some countries will use the term ‘guest’ or ‘guest worker’ because it immediately puts the immigrant workers in the unenviable role of a) being there only temporarily b) being in a host’s house, with the added implication that the host is being generous and well-behaved c) being expected to behave in a grateful way d) being the one at fault if they’re not sensitive and cultured enough to realise that it’s time to leave.
It’s human nature to create and look through a lens prior to taking some sort of action. The language used acts as a warning of intent.

As a population ages or declines, immigrants with skills become increasingly valuable, but it’s the skills that are valued. Without those skills would-be immigrants are deemed worthless and are denied access.

Some countries are aware that they have a moral obligation to other peoples but they help in the most mean-spirited and small minded way possible. The self-image of the nation demands that they act in a moral way but underneath they don’t want the immigrants and create as many restrictions as possible. The UK is in this position, creating definitions such as ‘asylum seeker’ and making it as difficult as possible for asylum seekers to get in, even if that sometimes means deporting them back to almost certain death.

Some countries treat immigrants wonderfully IF they’re in the right racial group. It used to be the case that white South Africans or Rhodesians (as was) had no problem getting into the UK, but black South African or Rhodesian immigrants were as rare as hens teeth.

Maybe one day everyone will be valued for themselves. One day in the future we’ll just see people as they are. The use of ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ refers to the concept of a whole family of humanity, and also to other nations’ use of the terms ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ in day-to-day discourse, something that the ‘indigenous’ UK population doesn’t use.

The last verse seems very childish but actually says this is my culture and my nation; over there is another culture and nation; we’re all part of humanity, all coexisting on the same planet; I’ve tasted other cultures (I’ve travelled a bit, read a lot, watched plenty of T.V about other cultures) ; this planet and all our cultures are wonderful.
The last verse is therefore full of hope.
In the context of previous verses the last verse also implies a time when there’s no need for the current concept of immigration / migration, when people can just move about freely ( I believe it was possible to migrate to the UK without any need to inform anyone a hundred years ago, and was certainly possible in the USA and Australia when they were first colonised). Current formalised immigration procedures are related to the concept of nation-states and citizenship, so maybe one day we’ll go post-nation-state.

Against the wall

admin — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:19:36 +0000

Here’s a ‘colleague’,
Low paid, low-grade,
As the shark-like supervisor hovers over him:

Aspirations limited,
Horizons restricted,
He ekes out a living in the Super-Mall
Through which a procession of drudges trudge with screaming kids in grim relentlessness,
The poor feeding the poor,
Whilst poor ‘Roger’ stands at the door
Greeting us -

Some Kafkaesque nightmare
Conjured up to crush the spirit,
The slow cycle of poverty-in, poverty-out,
Measured and weighed by poverty,
Ticked off by poverty,
Whilst billionaires feed off their work and despair.

27/06/07

In the UK superstore drones are now called ‘colleagues’ to make them imagine that they’re valued.