Twenty years ago today
We witnessed shock and awe
The American compulsion
To take themselves to war
Unleashing bombs destroying lives
Out for great revenge
We can do it so we will
An out and out power binge
And we’re complicit so we are
Ordered by Tony Blair
A decent pleasant honest chap
Left with a long long stare
Tony was persuaded
That to go to war was right
I could see it from the side lines
For distance helps lend light
Tony Blair persuaded himself
You could see it in the chamber
Robin Cook laid down the mark
Look out look out for danger
And white men in ascendancy
Despising shades of brown
Considered power all their own
Heads should now hang down
Brian Fahy
20 March 2023
+ The healing of the man born blind, yesterday’s gospel, is a gospel for all of us. How do we ‘see’ the world? For all our desire to be just and to appear just, we are also a conditioned people. White man’s rule in a white man’s world causes us to feel superior to those who are not white. We live unaware of it because the only world we have ever known is the white man’s world.
Erris Poetry 