Do You Hear The People Sing

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again
When the beating of your heart
Echos the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes

*The opening verse from the greatest song from Les Mis, a song so full of emotion and passion that it can make the hairs on your arms stand up or bring a tear to your eye. If you've never heard it then find it on YouTube

Mangled flesh and shattered bone
The remains of what was once a man
I knew not where he came from, never knew his name
Once a fit young soldier
Now just mangled raw remains
Does it really matter?
Just another families shattered dreams
Another family berieved
Casualty of war, just a name upon a page
Will the generals care about just another grave
Well we gathered up the pieces
About ten pounds of raw red meat
Put sand inside the casket
To help make up the weight
They'll tell you your son died a hero's death
As all our young men do
In truth his limbs were trembling
As the mine he stepped on blew
Oh yes he died for glory on that fateful day
In truth he died for nothing
Just another name on another wooden cross

Give me an acre of forest
Beneath an acre of sky
Where a million stars look down
And the earth in contentment sighs

I sit there in my garden
And watch the clouds up there
I see fairy story castles
And dragons flying there
It's all imagination
Just images in my mind
But this is my time to sit, think, write
Of the images I see
Next time you look at moving clouds
Imagine what you see
Then just let the pen take over
And write those moving images for me

The sweat ran in rivulets from my body beset by dreams
Of devastation and horror invading my my mind
Body parts floating in pools of jellied blood
Kids as young as ten now high on drink and drugs
Why then did we give our lives
To make the world a better place
Why then the blood we shed for you
Is good blood gone to waste
You know, we bled for you, suffered, died
To give you a better place
But you laugh in scorn and hurl abuse
Kick dust into our face

We suffered, we died to give you democracy
Our bodies rot in foreign lands
To give you freedoms speech
But you hurl our dying in the faces
Of those who died for you
Oh you, the drug fueled simpletons
Who don't even try to acknowledge
What we gave up for you

For many long years I have wandered
Many long years I have roamed
But a voice in my head is now calling
Calling me back to my South Country home

I have walked in your tropical forests
Experienced the hot desert sun
Climbed your mountains snow capped peaks
In your lakes and blue seas I have swum

Now a voice in my head is calling me back
Back to where I was born
Once more to walk in the pine woods
Under the warm summer sun

Many years ago I did leave her
A youth so fearless and bold
Now I hear my South Country calling me back
To the place where I can grow gracefully old

I will never forget the friends that I made
As I wandered your far distant shores
And if ever you visit my South Country
You'll find a welcome sign over my door