“If you do not stand by me, you will not stand at all.’ Isaiah 7:9
Speaking truth to power
Is a phrase we like to hear
For power can get out of hand
And truth is ever dear
And truth is now disputed
Who will you believe?
When powerful men know everything
And conspire to deceive
Putin took me by surprise
I wasn’t expecting war
War belonged in history
Or in places very far
But very far is now so near
And all of us drawn in
Vital then that we should learn
The virtue from the sin
I listen to Noam Chomsky
John Mearshimer as well
I find their talk enlightening
I buy what they now sell
America’s de facto power
That has so ruled the globe
Threatens the likes of Russia
Now that truth must be told
The East/West confrontation
It hasn’t gone away
The world of 1945
Is prolonged into this day
Our ‘liberal democracy’
We think so very fine
But we too can be guilty
Of terrible unjust crime
It does not serve to go around
Blaming them not us
It takes two to tango
Two to make a fuss
And the truth that I must come to see
And bring into my mind
Is why are you so mad at me?
And are we both now blind?
Brian Fahy
12 July 2022
+ We perceive Russia and North Korea and China as ‘unfree’ societies, and we perceive ourselves as open, honest societies, liberal and democratic. But internally and externally we are all sinners and all at fault, as the latest information about events in Afghanistan reveal. We put soldiers in intolerable situations and then shake our heads when they behave badly.
My father, who went through the Second World War, referred to war as a mug’s game. Nobody wins – everybody loses. But such warfare is not only that played out with guns and bombs. All antagonistic conversation and negative speaking is an act of war.
Erris Poetry 