1.LET ENGLAND SHAKE

The West's asleep
Let England shake, weighted down with silent dead
I fear our blood won't rise again
England's dancing days are done
Another day, Bobby, for you to come home
& tell me indifference won
Smile, smile Bobby, with your lovely mouth
Pack up your troubles, let's head out
to the fountain of death & splash about, swim back and forth
& laugh out loud, until the day is ending
& the birds are silent in the branches
& the insects are courting in the bushes
& by the shores of lovely lakes
heavy stones are falling

2.THE LAST LIVING ROSE

Goddamn' Europeans
Take me back to beautiful England
& the grey, damp filthiness of ages
fog rolling down behind the mountains
& on the graveyards, and dead sea-captains
Let me walk through the stinking alleys
to the music of drunken beatings
past the Thames River, glistening like gold
hastily sold for nothing
Let me watch night fall on the river
the moon rise up and turn to silver
the sky move, the ocean shimmer
the hedge shake, the last living rose quiver

3.THE GLORIOUS LAND

How is our glorious country ploughed
Not by iron ploughs
Our lands is ploughed by tanks and feet
Feet
Marching
Oh, America
Oh, England
How is our glorious country sown
Not with wheat and corn.
How is our glorious land bestowed
What is the glorious fruit of our land
Its fruit is deformed children
What is the glorious fruit of our land
Its fruit is orphaned children

4.THE WORDS THAT MAKHET MURDER

I've seen and done things I want to forget
I've seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat
Blown and shot out beyond belief
Arms and legs were in the trees
I've seen and done things I want to forget
Coming from an unearthly place
Longing to see a woman's face
Instead of the words that gather pace
The words that maketh murder
These, these, these are the words
The words that maketh murder
These, these, these are the words
The words that maketh murder
These, these, these are the words
Murder
These, these, these are the words
The words that maketh murder
I've seen and done things I want to forget
I've seen a corporal whose nerves were shot
Climbing behind the fierce, gone sun
I've seen flies swarming everyone
Soldiers fell like lumps of meat
These are the words, the words are these
Death lingering, stunk
Flies swarming everyone
Over the whole summit peak
Flesh quivering in the heat
This was something else again
I fear it cannot be explained
The words that make, the words that make
Murder
What if I take my problem to the United Nations

5.ALL AND EVERYONE

Death was everywhere, in the air and in the sounds
coming off the mounds of Bolton's Ridge
Death's anchorage
When you rolled a smoke or told a joke
it was in the laughter and drinking water
it approached the beach as strings of cutters
Dropped into the sea and lay around us
Death was in the ancient fortress, shelled by a million bullets
from gunners, waiting in the copses
with hearts that threatened to pop their boxes
as we advanced into the sun
death was all and everyone
Death hung in the smoke and clung
to 400 acres of useless beachfront
A bank of red earth, dripping down death
now, and now, and now
in the air and in the sounds
coming off the mounds of Bolton's Ridge
Death's anchorage
Death was in the staring sun, fixing its eyes on everyone
It rattled the bones of the Light Horsemen
still lying out there in the open
as we, advancing in the sun
sing Death to all and everyone

6.ON BATTLESHIP HILL

The scent of Thyme carried on the wind
stings your face into remembering
cruel nature has won again
On Battleship Hill's caved in trenches
a hateful feeling still lingers
even now, 80 years later
Cruel nature
Cruel cruel nature
The land returns to how it has always been.
The scent of Thyme carried on the wind.
Jagged mountains, jutting out,
cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth.
On Battleship Hill I hear the wind
Say Cruel nature has won again

7.ENGLAND

I live and die through England
Through England
It leaves a sadness
Remedies never were within my reach
I cannot go on as I am
Withered vine reaching from the country
That I love
England
You leave a taste
A bitter one
I have searched for your springs
But people, they stagnate with time
Like water, like air
To you, England, I cling
Undaunted, never failing love for you
England

8.IN THE DARK PLACES

We got up early, washed our faces
Walked the fields and put up crosses
Passed through the damned mountains
Went hellwards
and some of us returned, and some of us did not
In the fields and in the forests
Under the moon and under the sun
Another summer has passed before us
and not one man has, not one woman has revealed
The secrets of this world
So our young men hid with guns
In the dirt and in the dark places

9.BITTER BRANCHES

Bitter branches spreading out
There's none more bitter than the wood
Into the wide world, it grows
twisting under soldier's feet
standing in line
and the damp earth underneath
Holding up their rifles high
holding their young wives
who wave goodbye
Hold up the clear glass
to look and see soldiers standing
and the roots twist underneath
Their young wives with white hands wave goodbye
Their arms as bitter branches spreading into the world
Wave goodbye, wave goodbye

10.HANGING IN THE WIRE

Walker sees the mist rise
Over no man's land
He sees in front of him
A smashed up waste ground
There are no fields or trees
No blades of grass
Just unhurried ghosts are there
Hanging in the wire
Walker's in the wire
Limbs point upwards
There are no birds singing
The white cliffs of Dover
There are no trees to sing from
Walker cannot hear the wind
Far off symphony
To hear the guns beginning
Walker's in the mist
Rising over no man's land
In the battered waste ground
Hear the guns firing

11.WRITTEN ON THE FOREHEAD

People throwing dinars at the belly-dancers
In a sad circus by a trench of burning oil
People throw belongings; a lifetime's earnings
Amongst the scattered rubbish and suitcases on the sidewalk
Take palms and orange and tangerine trees
With eyes that are crying for everything
Let it burn, let it burn
So I talked to an old man by the generator
He was standing on the gravel by the fetid river
He turned to me and answered: baby, see
Said: war is here in our apartment, let it sleep
So I jumped in at the riverhead and tried to swim away
Through tons of sewage; they had written on their foreheads
Take palms and orange and tangerine trees
With eyes that are crying for everything
Let it burn, let it burn

12.THE COLOUR OF THE EARTH

Louis was my dearest friend
Fighting in the ANZAC trench
Louis ran forward from the line
I never saw him again
Later in the dark
I thought I heard Louis' voice
Calling for his mother, then me
But I couldn't get to him
He's still up on that hill
20 years on that hill
Nothing more than a pile of bones
But I think of him still
If I was asked I'd tell
The colour of the earth that day
It was dull and browny red
The colour of blood, I'd say