h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In honour of the President's visit I republish this little homily to his success in Iraq.

Collateral Damage.

A woman lies in an empty street,
Flies crawl over the rotting meat,
Her pretty smile no longer sweet,
She’s just collateral damage.

A young boy moans in a dusty ward,
His family’s gone so he’s ignored,
A shell fragment severed his spinal cord,
He’s just collateral damage.

The market’s empty, the people fled,
Just dog’s remain, and they’re well fed,
I still can’t get it into my head,
It’s just collateral damage.

A soldier stares at his burning tank,
It’s “blue on blue” he’s got to thank,
For Bill, for John, for Bob, for Frank,
But they’re just collateral damage.

An Imam cries in a roofless hall,
His God will not return his call,
His faith destroyed in the missile’s fall,
He’s just collateral damage.

The Torah, the Bible and the Koran,
All claim to reveal their God’s plan,
How can they justify to this man,
That he’s just collateral damage?

The truth lies buried in the sand,
Hidden there by the politician’s hand,
So we’ll never come to understand,
What’s really collateral damage.

That more will die from filthy water,
Than in the fiercest battle slaughter,
It’s not news, though it oughta,
It’s just collateral damage.

Across the sea, Bush basks in glory,
But he ain’t telling the whole story,
His electors don’t need to see the gory
Reality of collateral damage.

He is a man well satisfied,
He has restored his father’s pride,
No matter that so many died,
They’re just collateral damage.

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

The dubious financial practices - giving Iraqi money to American corporations - aren't covered, but that's OK. Your verse addresses the human perspective, as it should. I'm not sure if W will see it, though.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Raw emotion which can't be hidden in figures and rhetoric. I feel it too.

Brilliant, Matholwch. Imagine if W *could* see it! (Although I think he's so hardened, he wouldn't realise it was about him!

Thankyou all,

I suspect that if Dubyah saw it I would just get my phone tapped by Echelon again. Besides as part of a government that invented the term 'Collateral Damage', they would not see the irony even when presented in as raw terms as flowed through this.

I do question the 'humanity' of such people. Even though it is my verse I cannot read it aloud without having to pause to recompose myself, clear my throat and wipe away the tears. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon get me the same way.

Sadly,
Matholwch /|\.

Math, that's as powerful the second time around as the first. You're my favourite poet!

May I use it at the start of a lecture?

Hi Bod

As I have said before, I see my dodgy doggerel as a gift, so I freely pass it to others.

Let me know how your lecture goes .

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Every time I read this I have to stop and take the rest in after a break. Aren't there rules against poems that make people cry? :'(

What inspired you to write something so... so difficult? Everything about it, from the predominant blue-green-glassy feel of it to the words themselves cut straight through my rational mind and right into my emotions.

- Jordan

Hi Jordan

I'm sorry if the poem causes you emotional distress, but that is its purpose. The inspiration comes from the Awen, and from my despair at the throw-away, PR-led coverage of this unnecessary conflict by the powers that be.

While people still think in the terms presented to them by these powers then such wars will continue to be seen as generally acceptable. Under the leadership of Tony 'young Cromwell' Blair, and George 'John Wayne' Bush we are exceeding the darkest nightmares of George Orwell when he penned the term 'newspeak' in his prescient work - 1984.

Terms such as 'collateral damage', 'friendly fire', 'blue on blue', 'acceptable losses', 'minimal casualties', and 'regime change' all mean the same thing. Somewhere a mother is screaming in her grief. Friends and relatives are numb with pain. A sacred life has been snuffed out to feed another's greed.

That is what fed this poem.

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.