Armistice Sunday Blues
If this were a day just to celebrate peace,
And the end of the stupidity –
If thenceforth we’d learned and if henceforth we cease
All nationalist hostility;
Then maybe I could be a little less blue,
And not blame the soldiers so much
For orders they only were following through
For empire, oil and such.
And yes, I am fully aware that a war
Is complex, and that leaders are deep;
But still they are all politicians at core,
With pollsters and headlines to reap.
So soldiers get orders and carry them out,
And sometimes civilians die –
But that’s total war, and it’s too late to shout:
We knowingly grabbed for the lie.
They don’t want me carping, but fighting there too,
But I know this war isn’t cricket.
When his country comes calling, the patriot true
Tells his hypocrite homeland to stick it.
