The death of Peter Tosh in 1987 was a sad blow to many of his admirers.
GLASNOST AND PERESTROIKA
FREE THE VOICE, THAT IS GLASNOST.
GIVE THE POEPLE CHOICE,
YUPPIE FURNITURE MADE BY SOLIDARNOST,
OR ROCKETS AND MORTARS FOR THE SIEGE OF KOSTOVICE.
OUR HERO STARTED TO CHANGE THE WORLD,
TIRED OF AN ARMS RACE AND COLD WAR.
THE BANNER OF FREE EXPRESSION IS UNFURLED
TO WRAP THE MINORITIES IN A GRISLY PALLOR.
USTASE FLAGS FORM THE NATIONAL EMBLEM
THE POPE APPROVES BECAUSE THEY OUTLAW ABORTION
AND WHAT OF THE MAGHREBI IN HIS ASHELEM
MONSIEUR LE PEN GETS HIS GROWING PORTION
THE BELGIANS AND DUTCH HAVE THE VLAAMS-BLOK
THE NEW UNIFIED GERMANY WITH ITS FASCIST SKINHEADS.
FOOTBALL RIOTS NOT FAR BACK ON THE CLOCK,
MILITIA BUILT UP DURING PUNCH-UPS IN NOVI-SAD AND OSIJEK.
THE PEOPLE WANTED CHANGE AND VOTED FOR SELF DETERMINATION
THEY OFTEN ADMIRED REAGAN AND THATCHER BY MISTAKE
BECAUSE THEIR CHOICE PAVED THE PATH FOR EXTERMINATION
THEIR HEROS WERE IN THE POCKETS OF BANKERS ON THE TAKE.
DID THEY VOTE FOR OPEN FRONTIERS
THAT IS THE STRATEGIC LINKAGE
ECONOMY NEEDS TEE-EN-CEES AND FONCIERS
AND MAKE THE WORLD THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
PERESTROIKA IS THE BAND OF CHANGE
THE LYRICS OF LEBANISATION AND BEIRUTISATION
INEQUALITY AND REFUGEES IN SHORT RANGE
THOUGHTLESS MEN BUILD STRIFE WITH A DEEP FOUNDATION
AND IN THE LAND OF THE CROSS OF SAINT GEORGE
FIRST IT IS GAMZAKHURDIA AND NEXT JOHN MAJOR
WHO PROMISED MORE MONEY TO BE FORGED
FOR ALL THOSE WILLING TO TAKE A WAGER
TOP
SOMALI CRISIS
From the starving baby to the child soldier,
Food, food, food, but before we had water.
How many of us will become older.
The forgotten war, overshrouded by Desert Slaughter.
Remember the Gulf, under CNN's big lime-light,
Thousands of planes mobilised to protect the rich.
Sayid Barre deposed at the height of that fight.
But they said the Iraq-op went on without a hitch.
And where the great powers while a capital burns ?
The South flank has no great strategic meaning.
The big boys point their guns on the poor, each in turn.
Spike their guns, Solidarity our power of Healing.
They changed their government then got none,
But some law based on Might is Strong,
As Mao says, Power from the Barrel of a Gun.
But Power versus Power: the direction wrong.
Conquer Hate by Non-Hate
Defeat Violence by Non-violence.
Sponsor your choice of climatic change,
And send a message to break the silence.
TOP
IRAQ AND THE USA
Saddam Husayn calls Bush clinically insane.
And John Major is the most stupid prime minister of England
in all of history, or says Saddam Husayn.
He is the man running the big river land.
Does he really control the rivers. One one side Iran,
And to the North, the kurds or the turks.
To the South lies the rich emir with his diwan.
So it's at the river mouth be where the future lurks.
Turkey controls the head, and other parts of the watershed.
Boxed in from the sea by Syria and Jordan.
And all regimes are stooges of country badly lead.
The U.S.A., and its warlards pollute the garden.
Such a country with its war-cry 'Better Dead than Red'.
The cold war it's officially over.
But to the plotters and minions of the Fed
Keep the loot, and for the poor corpses send a bull-dozer.
Mass graves for the refugees or 'hejiri'.
We saw that on our television.
The fatal traffic jam stoked with napalm to high degrees.
And switched channels to the god loves money confusion.
What is this land of religious broadcasting,
But Oh so closely regulated. Pat Robertson's O.K,
But not so much of Rajneeesh, nor secular thing.
Work, Religion, Family, and what is it I say.
Whose money has it on its face?
Travaille, Famille, Patrie, with no error
Vichy France, that defining time and place.
So should we crawl to our bunkers in terror?
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KUWAIT
Kuwait, Kuwait, what has happened to you ?
The swift descent from heaven to hell.
Kuwait, Kuwait, what on earth can we do ?
You silenced those who could sound the warning bell
Jahilia is the name of your censorship.
The kuwaiti dinar backed by oil,
and iraqi money backed by blood.
The warrior sees chances for spoils,
and orders his tanks in, an invading flood.
But who gave him a Golden Sword ?
Fahd the Saud, and Sabah the emir.
The high priestess of robbery and war,
The arch deacon of deception and schemes
Gathered together to make the law.
Bush and Thatcher set murderous themes
That fateful meeting in Aspen, Colorado.
Who said satan was at their side ?
We showed them in the Falklands, and we won !
The queen of hearts so proudly proclaimed.
Don't be a wimp. Just go in and play the Hun !
It's war and who cares about the dead and maimed.
Our system needs its dose of terror.
Tell that in Gaza and Soweto.
Did we help the argentinian commies ?
You bet not. We just want their money.
Turn the screw and lend for military follies.
Subsidies for food and the workers just get honey.
Not at all. We want interest at X percent.
But what about the Peace Movement ? says George.
Years of demos about Viet Nam and we did yield.
Manipulate the media. The press is our forge.
The new world order -- Satellite TV and blood.
Keep the people down with mush.
So the press core got its act together.
Five months of explanation to mire the scene,
Report the troops and next the weather.
Hide the story of anguish and despair so obscene
We celebrate only the triumph of capitalism.
We can learn from the tyrannies of yore.
Burn the heretics who don't believe in demons!
Saddam Hussein, Muammar Ghdafi and yet more.
With guys like these we need advanced weapons.
Especially for Jahilia, Makkah and yet Babylon.
Persecute the Heretics. Pull out the stops.
For a Drug Free America, we endorse Zero Tolerance.
Virtue and Patriotism require interdiction ops.
Starve the people of Iraq, and show abhorrance.
Prepare the ground for Desert Slaughter.
Kif as-souk as-sillaha ? Re-cycle the oil rent.
Ein al Dar as-salaam ? Claim strategic needs.
Proclaim the need for jobs hiding your intent.
Conceal the damage, embezzle the proceeds.
Take the wealth from the poor to give to the rich.
The lost decade and impoverishment of the SOUTH.
Tokyo, Paris, London Frankfurt, and Washington DC
Dr. Goebbels first principal, the big mouth.
The end of history, to lie is now so easy.
The technology controlled by so few hands.
Where are the men of peace, humanists and reasoners
Sadly divided alas, by consumerism and competition.
Class war the forgotten agenda, out of season.
Wake up, wake up! These maniacs foster perdition.
T.N.C's and their agents out to destroy the World.
Trans National Corporations design the circles.
Bechtel and Schlumberger vie for contracts.
A Dantesque Hell set for the Fin De Siecle,
Flaming rivers of Oil and sulphurous cataracts.
Red Adair and Boots Hanson get no easy retirement.
Two decades of 'Western Security Policy' in the Gulf.
Five hundred blazing oil wells, a grand inferno.
And the sheiks finger beads, The president plays Golf.
Each bead a million bucks, perhaps for a casino.
So what's wrong with a worker's militia ?
The international force, the Zanj Rebellion,
Throw off the chains of tyranny in Bassora
Workers of the World Unite, take up the clarion,
A new world order so bid the old system Sayanora
Collective action to seize the centers of power.
TOP
STREETS OF DISCORDANT NOSTALGIA.
Leaning houses, twisted supports leading the soul
Through enchanted mists and the dark alleys of the mind
To envisage in the toils of desire their bodies entwined
In the embraces of destruction and the aura of the ghoul
Arisen from the slime infested pits of hell
To torture the minds of the honest in their travails
Of daily confrontation with the collective insanity
Shown by the money enslaved vampires responsive to the bell
Which wakes them from lethargic stasis with fresh wails
To greet the day and continue to move without pity
Forwards to the catastrophe engendered by mass stupidity.
The water glints on the paving stones,
Misty rain perspiring from the clouds,
enveloping those ancient homes
of those destined to fear the sounds.
The tramp of feet in unison, echoing
against the unforgetting walls,
Soaked in history of poverty, protest and rioting,
Against the injustice of life and the thralls,
of occupation and intimidation by military might.
The silence leaves us at liberty to dream
of the not so easily forgotten past,
whose ugly face lets forth its silent scream
of children taken from their homes at last
To deportation, slavery and ultimate annihilation.
In this web of despair so commonplace these days
Our souls become wreathed in desire, want and hope
and shortly succumbed into the dissolution into smoke
Born of the eternal pillars of fire which blaze
as beacons to guide man towards his final goal.
Tony Goddard, Paris 1980
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POEMS OF OUR AGE
OUDZIJDS ACHTERGURGER WAAL
IS MY ALTER EGO TRIP
TO LAY A LADY FROM A KRAAL
NEW PETCHABURI ROAD
PART OF THE HIPPY TRAIL
THE END OR PERHAPS THE START
OF LIVES AHEAD OF GREAT TRAVAIL.
THE MONKS, THE BANKS
THE POWER OF DAMMA
THAI SOCIO-POLITICAL LINKS
FLIGHT NAME:
THE POWER OF DAMMA.
EXISTENTIAL TOURISM:
"SEE THE PLACE AND DIE"
BUT FOR THE LOOKER AT THE SKY
"EXCHANGE IS ALTRUISM".
MY FEMALE TOY
LIVES IN KLONG TUEY.
SHE KEEPS HER HEAD HIGH.
SHE WAS BORN IN CHIENG RAI.
MY PLANE TO MAROCCO
ITS GRAVELY DELAYED
THE AIRPORT CONTROLLERS
"OFFICIAL GO SLOW"
MAKES GAMES TO BE PLAYED.
THE SAUDI TOURISTS,
WHAT A BUNCH.
WHORES FOR THE PURIST,
AND WHISKEY FOR LUNCH.
THE ENGLISH TOURIST
39 DEAD AT HEYSEL !
AGINCOURT FOR THE FUTURIST
CONDITTORI DO SELL.
THE FRENCH TOURIST
MAKE CAMPS OF CLUB MEDITERRANEE.
TO THOSE OF TENDENCE MARXIST
SEEK THE GIRL WHO IS "NETTE".
THE GERMAN TOURIST
IS TOTALLY WITHOUT HUMOUR.
HIS HABITS ARE THE CRUDEST,
ACORDING TO THE RUMOUR.
THE INDIAN TOURIST,
COMES FROM PLACE OF WAR
AND AM I THE STUPIDEST
BECAUSE I THOUGHT HE MEANT PLACE OF WHORE.
THE AFRICAN TOURIST,
HE CAME TO STUDY,
WHY HE GET DE ON DE COLLEGE LIST,
HE KNOW LOTS ALREADY.
THE RUSSIAN TOURIST
HEY, THEY AIN'T ALLOWED TO TRAVEL.
AND WHEN THEY CAN, TO BE HONEST
THEY HAVE NO MONEY TO UNRAVEL.
THE CHINESE TOURIST
GOES IN FEAR AND HESITATION
HIS ENGLISH IS NOT THE SUREST
AND HE'S THE POOR RELATION.
THE DUTCH TOURIST
WITH FLAXEN HAIR
OFTEN THE COOLEST
A MAN FROM THE MERCHANT'S LAIR.
THE TURKISH TOURIST
IS A REFUGEE OF OPPRESSION
HE ENDS UP A HAJI
ON THE WAY TO TRUE DOWN PRESSION.
THE THAI TOURIST
MAYBE A PRETTY GIRL
AND HER HEART IS THE PUREST
ALTHOUGH HER MIND'S A WHIRL.
TONY GODDARD, SHEFFIELD 1990
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BALKAN TROUBLES
Babich, Panich, Milosevitch
Double, double, toil and trouble
The joker and the queen of hearts
We must assign names from the
lists of lunacy
To name our politiciens,
Mesic and Ante Marcovitch.
Serbian music then serbian guns.
The loud speaker war, and just
Whats that. The loud speaker war
Just like they smoked out Noriega.
Force is the word they use.
Local despots fight out petty feuds.
Might is right so both sides say.
And cast darkness over light.
The wadi of time, the wadi nisah
the wadi of springs, and who to
heal, and bring good luck.
Gamble for peace as well as for war.
TOP
THE MANOR ESTATE
They came by plane,
From half a million mines
To the land of the closing mines.
The suburb called Manor
Sheffield manor their place of exile.
Share the fate of the captive queen.
Time in stasis the fate of the hejiri.
The queen of scots awaiting her death
in gilded captivity.
Now where the gold, but just dog shit.
Rottweilers and Terriers and also
Dangerous men, dangerous dogs.
They passed act of parliament
But they missed.
The dangerous dogs just there
In the high chambers of power.
Run down the cities,
Close the shops,
Stop the buses for a classles society.
The estates the dustbins,
But not just for a troublesome queen,
The refugees, the hejiri, to join the ranks
The cohorts of the unemployed.
Its cheaper to make war they say.
Spend in a day in the Gulf
For the high emirs.
But the servants can go to hell.
The manor estate, just so much people.
The steel mills closed, dismantled and
dissappeared.
Northern Rustbelt, from Belfast to Byelarussia.
And no jobs for the new faces perhaps.
But just the plans for classless society.
Everyone a waiter in MacDonalds.
TOP
BELFAST BOMBERS
In the 1890s the anarchist bomber
With armed propaganda by deed,
But for the 1990s the logic bomb.
The computer virus, a deadly seed.
What genie has escaped the tomb.
Unleashed by an inadvertant magnetic read.
But did you not check your .exe ?
Or what about the FAT
Perhaps a case of epilepsy.
Bad File Allocation Table, that exact.
Exploding knowledge our new XTC
But frontiers to break for all that.
(c) TONY GODDARD, BELFAST 1993
TOP
DEATH OF A PRINCESS
A princess is dead
But her star shines on.
Racing to just get ahead,
The limousine driver struck solid beton.
On a brule les feux rouges
Le finale d'un pas de deux.
C'etait un fois de trop
Ce voyage avec le chevalier de carreaux.
Like a moth drawn to a burning light
The maiden is written down as a martyr.
Sacrificed to Moloch, now Lord of Media Might
The precious moments of her life
the stuff of commerce and barter.
She sold herself, and was making steps
Such progress, just as after a Damascene conversion
Similar to the Hajj of the Fabled Malcolm-X.
The world her oyster, with its painful parts
Angola, Bosnia, and amongst the courtiers much consternation.
Step forward the Star, after breaking ranks
She brought home the tragedy of land-mines
Such focus on man's needs,
For health, shelter and peace,
Powerful seeds
Moving on to improving our times.
And she was criticised for stepping out of line
Empress of the People's Century,
with sharpening focus in her charitable acts
Serious thoughts for your soul and mine.
(c) Tony Goddard London 1997