Redemption Song

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Old pirates, yes, they rob I;
Sold I to the merchant ships,
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs.

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
‘cause none of them-a can-a stop-a the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it’s just a part of it:
We’ve got to fulfil the book.
Won’t you help to sing
Theser songs of freedom?
‘cause all I ever had:
Redemption songs -
All I ever had:
Redemption songs:
These songs of freedom,
Songs of freedom.

~ Bob Marley ~

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This has been a song I have listened to and enjoyed since my teenage, but now that I traveled in Haiti and Jamaica and listened to the stories of the Maroons it resonates very differently for me now.

The Unfinished Song

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There are five thousand of us here
in this small part of the city.
We are five thousand.
I wonder how many we are in all
in the cities and in the whole country?
Here alone
are ten thousand hands which plant seeds
and make the factories run.
How much humanity
exposed to hunger, cold, panic, pain,
moral pressure, terror and insanity?
Six of us were lost
as if into starry space.
One dead, another beaten as I could never have believed
a human being could be beaten.
The other four wanted to end their terror
one jumping into nothingness,
another beating his head against a wall,
but all with the fixed stare of death.
What horror the face of fascism creates!
They carry out their plans with knife-like precision.
Nothing matters to them.
To them, blood equals medals,
slaughter is an act of heroism.
Oh God, is this the world that you created,
for this your seven days of wonder and work?

Within these four walls only a number exists
which does not progress,
which slowly will wish more and more for death.
But suddenly my conscience awakes
and I see that this tide has no heartbeat,
only the pulse of machines
and the military showing their midwives’ faces
full of sweetness.
Let Mexico, Cuba and the world
cry out against this atrocity!
We are ten thousand hands
which can produce nothing.
How many of us in the whole country?

The blood of our President, our compañero,
will strike with more strength than bombs and machine guns!
So will our fist strike again!
How hard it is to sing
when I must sing of horror.
Horror which I am living,
horror which I am dying.
To see myself among so much
and so many moments of infinity
in which silence and screams
are the end of my song.
What I see, I have never seen
What I have felt and what I feel
Will give birth to the moment …

~ Victor Jara ~

(translated by Joan Jara, his wife.)

Chilean writer, theatre director, poet – songwriter, singer, communist.

This poem / song was written when he was held in the Chile Stadium with 5,000 other opponents of the US backed coup d’etat against the elected Government of Chile. Arrested on 11 September 1973 – the day of the coup d’etat – he was killed by machine guns on 15 September, 1973. But as Pete Seeger reminded us, “As long as we sing his songs, as long as his courage can inspire us to greater courage, Victor Jara will never die”.

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I am explaining a few things…

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you are going to ask:and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them fullof apertures and birds?
i’ll tell you all the news.

i lived in a suburb,
a suburb of madrid,with bells,
and clocks,and trees.

from there you could look out
over castille’s dry face:
a leather ocean.
my house was called
the house of flowers,because in every cranny
geraniums burst:it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
remember,raul?
eh,rafael?federico,do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of june drowned flowers in your mouth?
brother,my brother!!
everything
loud with big voices,the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of arguelleswith its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres,litres,the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roof with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine,frenzied ivory of potatoes
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.

and one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings–
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
bandits with planes and moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children.

and the blood of children ran through streets
without fuss,like children’s blood.

jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the viper would abominate!

face to face with you i have seen the blood
of spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives! treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of spain
spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes.
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull’s eye of your hearts.

and you’ll ask:why doesn’t his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and great volcanoes of his native land?

come and see the blood in the streets.
come and see
the blood in the streets.
come and see
the blood in the streets!!

~ Pablo Neruda ~

Dawn

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Now the roosters are singing.
Natalia, your rooster’s already sung, sister,
Justo, yours has already sung, brother.
Get up off your cots, your bed mats.
I seem to hear the congos awake on the ohter coast.
We can already blow on the kindling – throw out the pisspot.
Bring an oil lamp so we can see the faces.
A dog in a hut yelped
and a dog from another hut answered.
Juana, it’s time to light the stove, sister.
The dark is even darker because day is coming.
Get up Chico, get up Pancho.
There’s a horse to mount,
we have to paddle a canoe.
Our dreams had us separated, in folding
cots and bed mats (each of us dreaming our own dream)
but our awakening reunites us.
The night already draws away followed by its witches and ghouls.
We will see the water very blue; right now we don’t see it. – And
this land with its fruit trees, which we also don’t see.
Wake up Pancho Nicaragua, grab your machete
there’s a lot of weeds to cut
grab your machete and your guitar.
There was a owl at midnight and a hoot owl at one.
The night left without moon or any morning star.
Tigers roared on this island and those on the coast called back.
Now the night bird’s gone, the one that says: Sc-rewed, Sc-rewed.
Later the skylark will sing in the palm tree.
She’ll sing: Compañero
Compañera.
Ahead of the light goes the shade flying like a vampire.
Wake up you, and you, and you.
(Now the roosters are singing.)
Good morning, God be with you!

~Ernesto Cardinal~
(translation by Mark Zimmerman)

——–
What can I say in my drab prose about this beautiful poem….

Just listen to those words “Our dreams had us separated, in folding
cots and bed mats (each of us dreaming our own dream)but our awakening reunites us“

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Range Finding

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The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung
And cut a flower beside a ground bird’s nest
Before it stained a single human breast.
The stricken flower bent double and so hung.
And still the bird revisited her young.
A butterfly its fall had dispossessed
A moment sought in air his flower of rest,
Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.

On the bare upland pasture there had spread
O’ernight ‘twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread
And straining cables wet with silver dew.
A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.
The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,
But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.

~ Robert Frost ~

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What the Bullet Sang

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O Joy of creation,
To be!
O rapture, to fly
And be free!
Be the battle lost or won,
Though its smoke shall hide the sun,
I shall find my love — the one
Born for me!

I shall know him where he stands
All alone,
With the power in his hands
Not o’erthrown;
I shall know him by his face,
By his godlike front and grace;
I shall hold him for a space
All my own!

It is he — O my love!
So bold!
It is I — all thy love
Foretold!
It is I — O love, what bliss!
Dost thou answer to my kiss?
O sweetheart! what is this
Lieth there so cold?

~ Bret Harte ~

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This poem is more striking for someone who is aware of the Sufi-Bhakti poetry tradition of South Asia with its dual layering of meaning with both romantic / erotic love in its intense physicality and spiritual devotion to a personal god inscribed into the same lines.

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The Battle of Blenheim

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It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar’s work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
In playing there had found;
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And, with a natural sigh,
“‘Tis some poor fellow’s skull,” said he,
“Who fell in the great victory.

“I find them in the garden,
For there’s many here about;
And often when I go to plough,
The ploughshare turns them out!
For many thousand men,” said he,
“Were slain in that great victory.”

“Now tell us what ’twas all about,”
Young Peterkin, he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
“Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for.”

“It was the English,” Kaspar cried,
“Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for,
I could not well make out;
But everybody said,” quoth he,
“That ’twas a famous victory.

“My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

“With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide,
And many a childing mother then,
And new-born baby died;
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

“They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

“Great praise the Duke of Marlbro’ won,
And our good Prince Eugene.”
“Why, ’twas a very wicked thing!”
Said little Wilhelmine.
“Nay… nay… my little girl,” quoth he,
“It was a famous victory.

“And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win.”
“But what good came of it at last?”
Quoth little Peterkin.
“Why that I cannot tell,” said he,
“But ’twas a famous victory.”

~ Robert Southey ~

The Last Laugh

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‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed, or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped – ‘In vain! vain! vain!’
Machine-guns chuckled, ‘Tut-tut! Tut-tut!’
And the Big Gun guffawed.

Another sighed, – ‘O Mother, Mother! Dad!’
Then smiled, at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured, – ‘Fool!’
And the falling splinters tittered.

‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.

~ Wilfred Owen ~

The General

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"Good-morning, good-morning!" the General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the men that he smiled at are most of 'em dead,

And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

"He's a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

~ Siegfried Sassoon~

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Twenty Tons of TNT

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I have seen it estimated:
Somewhere between death and birth
There are now three thousand million
People living on this earth
And the stock-piled mass destruction
Of the Nuclear Powers-That-Be
Equals–for each man or woman–
Twenty tons of TNT.

Every man of every nation
(Twenty tons of TNT)
Shall receive this allocation
Twenty tons of TNT.
Texan, Bantu, Slav or Maori,
Argentine or Singhalee,
Every maiden brings this dowry
Twenty tons of TNT.

Not for thirty silver shilling
Twenty tons of TNT
Twenty thousand pounds a killing–
Twenty tons of TNT.
Twenty hundred years of teaching,
Give to each his legacy,
Plato, Buddha, Christ or Lenin,
Twenty tons of TNT

Father, Mother, Son and Daughter,
Twenty tons of TNT
Give us land and seed and water,
Twenty tons of TNT.
Children have no need of sharing;
At each new nativity
Come the ghostly Magi bearing
Twenty tons of TNT

Ends the tale that has no sequel
Twenty tons of TNT.
Now in death are all men equal
Twenty tons of TNT.
Teach me how to love my neighbour,
Do to him as he to me;
Share the fruits of all our labour
Twenty tons of TNT.

~Michael Flanders~

(Thanks, yet again, to Aparna)

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