This is for you DU

[cali]

Because we've all been thinking about dictators and war, and that perhaps, the worst is yet to come.

LITANY FOR DICTATORSHIPS

For all those beaten, for the broken heads,
The fosterless, the simple, the oppressed,
The ghosts in the burning cities of our time.

For those taken in rapid cars to the house and beaten
By the skilful boys, the boys with the rubber fists,
Held down and beaten, the table cutting their loins,
Or kicked in the groin and left with the muscles jerking
Like a headless hen's on the floor of the slaughter-house
While they brought the next man in with his white eyes staring.
For those who still said "Red front!" or "God save the crown".
And for those who were not courageous
But were beaten nevertheless,

<snip>

For the man crucified on the crossed machine guns
Without name, without resurrection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons- John Smith, John Doe
John Nobody- oh crack your mind for his name.
Faceless as water, naked as the dust,
Dishonored as the earth the gas shells poison
And barbarous with portent.

<snip>

We thought we were done with these things, but we were
wrong.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.
Now the night rolls back on the West and the night is solid.
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth.
Our children know and suffer the armed men.


Just a bit of Stephen Vincent Benet's long ode, from his collection of Nightmares and Visitations. He's not much read anymore, but I've always found it powerful stuff.

[StClone]

1. Guernica to Franco : Music to Bush

And for those who have not seen this work of musical art it bears reposting:

http://www.supadubya.com/