The public day

Hundreds of decorated tanks rolled down
The street this morning in the vale
No one came out to watch the spectacle withal
On this public day of the town
People they had marched to the mortuary
To fetch the masses who were dead happily
And lifeless bodies that would have come were busy
Jostling to get a line on the eighth page
Of the newspapers they will find their eternal place


Occasionally punctuated was the street with flowers
Strewn from the sky from jet planes from Russia
With colourful cloth banners saying they were picked
Specially from a large single garden
But the fragrance was lost
Before crossing the stream of scum


And away from the street
Unimportant people are lying down
On the shadows of their own death
Unimportant people are taken away
To the torture chambers of humanity
While there is merrymaking—
Self-glorification on the naked street
Flaunting the guns from Israel and America
Dancing to the tune of marching army bands