"Freedom Isn't Free"

“No Gods and no masters!”

A cry for someone, some release

The weight of these damned institutions

The taxman; the thief

And the coal-fires of industry

The masters of war

And ten million youthful bodies fuel the machinery

The white feather cries out “No more!  No more!”

But those bastard-conquerors spin their lore...

And now, the persistence of memory

Gather round, little children: History’s holding court

She’s storytelling at random: a tale from last year, maybe?

Or three thousand years before

Via Dolorosa

Eagles, sandals, and shields

And a cross, a corpse, a sacrificial lamb

A-salam; Pax

Pax Romana on Levantine sands

Fast-forward, the cast’s recast

Balfour’s Pax Britannica; ex-Palestinian lands

And a hundred million little crosses, a million carved in marble

A hundred billion tears cried in rivers, the living’s sorrows

And today, the story’s the same

A few thousand little marbles grow in Arlington

A few million flowers burned in Babylon

And the hanging gardens fall

History, she’s cycling, as so many times before

And ten million falling souls down the memory hole

Once again, brothers!  Sisiters!  To the grave of the Unknown Soldier!

While we children play and dream on Atlas’ shoulders

As he lies there, unknown but to God

This stage, our World, She spirals round the Sun

Drink!  Drink to the dead of Empire!

Leaders blindly leading us behind Power’s ancient design

Eternal cities, golden nights

Sempeternal wrongs, inhuman might

Civilisation; the soaring spires

Shining cities throng; this poet’s passion plays

And spirals round the flag, unfurled

Unknown coffins carried; unknown bodies burned

A toast to this heart’s desire

To “the Love of Man” cast on Her funeral pyre

And did you hear?

The battle’s raging on...

Taxman’s coming – the State’s debt-collector

A hooded figure, sickle raised: the eternal spectre

Once again, dear friends, to foreign lands

Once again: “Why?!” this lonely poet demands

Another trillion pounds of flesh

Another quadrillion to fund this mess

Those auditors tabulate the fiscal cost

We, the feeling living, mourn the loss

From sea to shining sea

For what?  That dying dream

The Old Lie: “for Liberty!”

Freed from life, out in the fields

No, my love, we don’t die for Eden

No, my love, we don’t die for freedom

No, my love, there is no Higher Meaning

Yes, my love, they make a desert and call it peace

Yes, my love, freedom isn’t free