A poem by Scarecrow.

“No need for a blood sacrifice”, I hear you say…

“Unnecessary violence. Dead innocent children of

a badly thought-out revolution.

Home rule was on the way.” Really?

Defeated three times by those who made the promises …

What trust you must have in our oppressor!

An Englishman’s empty hollow word, and his deeds … full,

Ripe with Irish blood and you trust them.

As still, to-day, our North, a thousand years, lies wrapped in chains.

 

You, in your suit — and your middle class condescending education.

may sound profound in your leafy suburban period home:

Well fed, well watered, well waxed and shod.

 

You dare to preach: “No mandate”. For a revolution?

Plauseless re-writing of history

To suit an establishment bent on bending

To the power that was, and still does.

When did power ever concede willingly?

When did power ever concede to power?

When did power ever concede without blood?

Never, is the answer.

 

Yet pundits heap plaudits upon our enemy.

Praise at every turn. Entertain us with lies. Re-write history.

Ensure the next generations forget, and fall into

a slumber of cheap aristocratic swaddling.

Devoid of meaning, soothing unsettled questioning minds.

Endless obfuscation with mirrors and smoke to thwart newcomers

to this one truly remarkable moment of Irish life.

It was “doomed to fail”…. Did I hear you right?

So, don’t even try? Sit and wait, for the greediest hand

To throw crumbs at you? Give up, let the rot eat

Deeper into the psyche, burn into the soul.

 

Easy …. condemning, from your comfort, fools for company ….

Sweeping, arrogant, baseless statements …

by fat, lazy, unburdened donkeys …

Always the carrot, never the stick … and preach.

Fat, and warm, surrounded with servant-jesters,

Condemn those who have provided the foundation to build this new Nation.

From which you stand today and look, mealy-mouthed … across the water.

at the old empire for guidance on how to think.

 

Not a word from you about starvation. The death toll.

The mortality rate. The worst poverty on all this planet,

in this falling squalid Empire you speak of so lovingly.

Never the smell of fetid flesh, falling, rotting and falling

from living children even before they die … for want of a piece

of bread, from your mouth.

The squalid rancid overcrowding in crumbling Dublin.

As the poorest and lowest, coughing themselves to death.

100 souls in a single house, a toilet, a tap, no furniture, sleep on the floor.

Enough straw for only a cat …. in England’s ‘Second City’…

is four-star accommodation, by your records.

 

Festering dysentery, cholera, typhus and tuberculosis, every dying breath laboured.

The endless hungry crying of little children…the eternal ‘slumber song’ of the slum.

… And worse again, how horrible that sound, in the silence …. when even they give up…

 

”It’s safer in Flanders Fields, than in Dublin’s slums”

was your recruitment cry …

Where the strongest Irishmen bartered themselves to

serve their enemy, for a meal, and committed murder for the Crown.

Won your war for you….Won all your bloody wars for you…

Cost them their souls,

their dignity, sanity, their families, their heritage… Hunger, hunger, hunger…

Died in thousands .. Two of every Three Irishmen, in the English Army …

No condemnation from you for the sea of Irish blood spilt by the Crown?

For the Crown?

 

“No need for blood sacrifice”?

What fool today preaches such compliance,

Washing centuries of Irish blood from England’s hands?

Blood: Imperial currency.

What ignorance today speaks such nonsense?

Those who condemn the oppressed. And exaltation for the oppressor?

The agitator, dictator, the sadist, savage, the sick cruel impostor.

Clothed in Ermine and Fur … Dripping in stolen gold and poached Diamonds.

Ignore the strains of ‘Our nearest neighbour’ to

strip all wealth, dignity, labour, song, dreams and aspiration,

from every beating Irish heart, no matter the cost, no matter the pain,

no matter the suffering. Empty the fields. Steal the food from the mouth

Of a hungry nation. Watch as millions starve, while you

… dine on our bounty.

 

It’s easy, stand back and act like you slew a giant —

when that giant is already dead

which took an empire to bring down.

 

What callous fool will today condemn those who sought to better their lot:

to stand tall, bear arms against their barbaric persecutors.?

To bring an end to their own subjugation and slavery.

End their tormentor’s grip. Their torturer’s whip.

End the deliberate impoverishment of their own lives ..

What fool would dare condemn any man or woman this right?

What person would judge guilty, this father, mother son or daughter …

who sought a better life for all, at the risk of losing his own?

 

I’ll tell you:

A coward.

The kind of man who licks the boot that kicks him.

Kisses the foot on his neck.

A man with no blood in his veins, or heart beating in his chest.

A man who thinks that power comes from the Throne and not his own people.

A man who would sacrifice all for a clap on the back from a gloved hand.

Or kiss, on bended knee, a stolen ring.

A compromised man, a weak crawling man.

A man without empathy for his own people.

A man who would see his own suffer, if he would gain

just a little affection from his oppressor ….

A traitor.

 

Scarecrow May/2016.