Not If but When …

When you have lost your head, and those about you
Are casualties of violence brought by you
When you betray a trust, so others doubt you
And lie to those who need the truth in view
When you wait to ambush the defenceless,
And make allegiance with dictators’ coups
And fail to understand why others hate you
Whilst hating them, for what they seem to you

When you dream of total world Dominion,
And fantasise with War in outer space;
When your is Freedom a shattered Constitution,
And your Justice is a shawl of rotten lace;
When you paganise and crucify the stature
Of Science, with Intelligent Design,
And yearn to break all life, to bring on Rapture;
Then tell us all this doctrine is benign

When a blackened heap of bodies is your winning
And your risk is just a spreadsheet of your costs
When ‘Aid’ is holding ransom the defeated
Whilst ruling them, and calling them your hosts
When you can force your poor and Black and stupid
To serve the whims of your dynastic line
And so grip Power with no moral duty
Except to say – ‘Your will is wholly Mine’

When you can tell the crowd of your great virtue
But talk with spin, and feign a common touch
When spying on your friends is part of nature
And helping them is kicking out their crutch
When you filibuster the last desperate minute
With sixty seconds worth of opaque scum
Yours is the Earth, and all that’s in it
We regret you are Americans – with guns

Sam Nodes