Poppies
music : Éric Auclair, Karen Young
with their poppies and their signs,
saying Support our troops, not our enemies
imposing unintelligible designs.So since when is a crying child
and a frightened mother my enemy?
They told us our aim is to help them
in their struggle for peaceful autonomy.Then we blow them back to the stone age,
no empathy and no regrets.
We destroy their past and their present.
Their future’s this cycle of vengeance and death.And it just keeps going round and round…
That’s why you won’t see me
proudly wearing a poppy on my breast.
That’s why you won’t see me,
a cheerleader, in this boxing match of vengeance and death.
That’s why you won’t see me
tying a yellow ribbon around my car.
And I don’t want to see pushers in uniforms
turning the school kids on to war.
It seems the more full of fear we get
the higher flags fly.
It seems the more crimes that we commit
the more we claim God’s on our side.
Just hum your national anthem.
It’s all glory, guns and pride.
Well, your enemy is humming the same lies.
It won’t stop until the fever subsides.
And who and when and how long
to clean up this mess, to make up for all that was lost,
by the winners as well as the losers ?
We’ll never know how much it all cost.
And will we pay with our addiction
to their only cash crop of poppies ?
X X X
And on the horizon come the priests and the holy men
to sanctify their holy war, and to save us from our conscience.
Then come the embedded ones,
the better to bestialize the foe.
And then the generals and the politicians
come marching behind, baby-faced foot soldiers in tow.
Leading them along with chains:
golden chains, paid for by our tax dollars;
uranium-tipped chains, invented by our scientists;
and blue velvet chains, crooned by our entertainers.
And all along the great divide, that gulf that separates
those who would advance themselves for the cause,
and those who resist the temptation and fall…
foul into the jowls of history.
But they shine through all that blood-red ink…
X X X
And it’s gone, gone, gone,
the community’s gone.
And it’s gone, gone, gone,
the forgiveness is gone.
And it’s gone, gone, till we wipe off the soot
from the raging flames of war,
and can see each other as neighbours again.
And that’s why you won’t see me
waving flags, singing hymns to the blood of the lamb.
That’s why you won’t see me
supporting our troops, except to send them home alive.
That’s why you won’t see me,
proudly sending my child off to be slain.
That’s why you won’t see me
wearing a poppy, when the flag-covered coffin’s carried off the plane.
X X X