I did my duty, I went to war
Now to see her face, I ask no more

True love is her heart to be
How I wish life was battle free
Even as I fight, the years go by

Lessons to learn to ****, but why?
If only we could find some peace
Now my life would find a release
Each second takes me away from her

Oh, how I wish we could be together
Freedom should be fought for the better

Far away, I settle down to read her letter
If only I had never enlisted in this war
Reaching now, in tears, on a distant shore
Ends in tormented pain as she leaves me

Tired soldiers going home
Hope is the road they roam
Each waiting for war to cease

Proud to believe in peace
Ready to return to family
Instead of facing the enemy
Courage becomes their reward
Endless warriors with a sword

One wish for each day to live
Fighting for protection to give

Pressed to use the power of will
Endlessly not wanting to ****
A time for a loved ones kiss
Candles in a window and a wish
Each day is the price of peace

They said "let's have a war"
Blame it on the other side
People will blame them more
Their real purpose they'll hide

While they keep watching rockets
Blasting at the opposite soil
They will secretly line their pockets
By stealing all of the oil

But they just never will learn
Because there are too many that cry
Watching as the children burn
When it is only innocents that die

He said goodnight
As he lit his cigarette
The smoke drifted up
Maybe it reached the stars
The night had a chill
But he didn't feel the cold
I watched him walk away
Until darkness swallowed him
The mud beneath my boots
Squelched as I moved on
But the night made a noise
A sound we knew to fear
In slow motion moved my feet
Until I saw him on the ground
A bullet had sought him out
Maybe by a cigarette glow
Another soldier of the trenches
Gone in an act of war
But I can still hear his words
He said goodnight

The young soldier was crying
And his comrade lay dying
In the trenches he bled
In these trenches he is dead

Will the big guns ever cease ?
Can both sides ever find peace ?
As bullets continue to fill the sky
How many men will still die ?

No matter who everyone blames
Generals continue with their war games
They are unwilling to stop
Sending brave men over the top





copyright Chris Smith 2008

I have not done what he has done,
I know where he has been.
He has not been where I have gone,
yet knows the things I did.
I am my Fathers Son.
He tried to shield me from this path,
I wanted to follow his.
He never told anyone ,
I wanted to hear all of it.
I am my Fathers Son.
Together we now see each other,
the shroud has been lowered down.
The things that needed doing then,
still need doing now.
I grear up as he did then,
I am my Fathers Son.

1
We, whose lungs fill with the sweetness of day.
Who in May admire trees flowering
Are better than those who perished.

We, who taste of exotic dishes,
And enjoy fully the delights of love,
Are better than those who were buried.

We, from the fiery furnaces, from behind barbed wires
On which the winds of endless autumns howled,
We, who remember battles where the wounded air roared in
paroxysms of pain.
We, saved by our own cunning and knowledge.

By sending others to the more exposed positions
Urging them loudly to fight on
Ourselves withdrawing in certainty of the cause lost.

Having the choice of our own death and that of a friend
We chose his, coldly thinking: Let it be done quickly.

We sealed gas chamber doors, stole bread
Knowing the next day would be harder to bear than the day before.

As befits human beings, we explored good and evil.
Our malignant wisdom has no like on this planet.

Accept it as proven that we are better than they,
The gullible, hot-blooded weaklings, careless with their lives.

2
Treasure your legacy of skills, child of Europe.
Inheritor of Gothic cathedrals, of baroque churches.
Of synagogues filled with the wailing of a wronged people.
Successor of Descartes, Spinoza, inheritor of the word 'honor',
Posthumous child of Leonidas
Treasure the skills acquired in the hour of terror.

You have a clever mind which sees instantly
The good and bad of any situation.
You have an elegant, skeptical mind which enjoys pleasures
Quite unknown to primitive races.

Guided by this mind you cannot fail to see
The soundness of the advice we give you:
Let the sweetness of day fill your lungs
For this we have strict but wise rules.

3
There can be no question of force triumphant
We live in the age of victorious justice.

Do not mention force, or you will be accused
Of upholding fallen doctrines in secret.

He who has power, has it by historical logic.
Respectfully bow to that logic.

Let your lips, proposing a hypothesis
Not know about the hand faking the experiment.

Let your hand, faking the experiment
No know about the lips proposing a hypothesis.

Learn to predict a fire with unerring precision
Then burn the house down to fulfill the prediction.

4
Grow your tree of falsehood from a single grain of truth.
Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality.

Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself
So the weary travelers may find repose in the lie.

After the Day of the Lie gather in select circles
Shaking with laughter when our real deeds are mentioned.

Dispensing flattery called: perspicacious thinking.
Dispensing flattery called: a great talent.

We, the last who can still draw joy from cynicism.
We, whose cunning is not unlike despair.

A new, humorless generation is now arising
It takes in deadly earnest all we received with laughter.

5
Let your words speak not through their meanings
But through them against whom they are used.

Fashion your weapon from ambiguous words.
Consign clear words to lexical limbo.

Judge no words before the clerks have checked
In their card index by whom they were spoken.

The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason.
The passionless cannot change history.

6
Love no country: countries soon disappear
Love no city: cities are soon rubble.

Throw away keepsakes, or from your desk
A choking, poisonous fume will exude.

Do not love people: people soon perish.
Or they are wronged and call for your help.

Do not gaze into the pools of the past.
Their corroded surface will mirror
A face different from the one you expected.

7
He who invokes history is always secure.
The dead will not rise to witness against him.

You can accuse them of any deeds you like.
Their reply will always be silence.

Their empty faces swim out of the deep dark.
You can fill them with any feature desired.

Proud of dominion over people long vanished,
Change the past into your own, better likeness.

8
The laughter born of the love of truth
Is now the laughter of the enemies of the people.

Gone is the age of satire. We no longer need mock.
The sensible monarch with false courtly phrases.

Stern as befits the servants of a cause,
We will permit ourselves sycophantic humor.

Tight-lipped, guided by reasons only
Cautiously let us step into the era of the unchained fire.

The King of the World is on his way now,
he always shows up when the chips are down.
Everyone just loves The King of the World,
he always arrives with his banners unfurled.

The King can be a loud chap,
or The King can be quite a quiet mime,
he even puts his pants on
one royal leg at a time!

The King might eat breakfast,
or The King just might not,
he is everything you are,
yet is is all that you forgot.

He's a musician of sorts,
with a very big band,
his arrival is in herald,
throughout every land
-with brass trumpets a-blare,
and snare-drums rat-a-tat,
he makes everyone aware,
that he's now where you're at!

The King marches his forces
through the cities and fields,
assure of his courses,
lying flat beneath his heel.

He revels at the sight of deterioration,
fills his belly with the joy of nations in extinction.
The King grounds everything down to things he scrapes off his boots,
he topples the governs and poisons the cultural roots.

The King's fixations are splashed with spatters of blood,
turning kingdoms into crumbles of ashes and mud.
He bulldozes the bodies into toxic pits of ****,
contaminates by obscenity, wringing his hands at the wit.
Lionized by his minions in the empty empires he wrought,
The King's elite ruling class is dictated with rot.

In the aftermath of the bile
of his genocidal, sweet plight,
The King celebrates with great style,
turning the daylight into night.

With bonfires a-blaze on the wicked, windy wasteland,
The King of the World strikes up his big band,
and once marching again will torch and ravish the land,
dropping massive, beautiful bombs for the sake of the thrill,
melting the people and villages and eroding the hills.

The time for The King
always is nigh,
for he is surrounded by
the conjurations of lies.

Some say he is evil,
(but, he's not the Devil, you see)
-He's The King of the World,
he is you, he is *me.