Hunting The Muse

David Wilcox War Poem

Here's a spoken word poem by David Wilcox - I heard it on NPR tonight. It's about the war - it came across really well verbally, although its intent is a bit more obvious when you read it.

There was a long haired guy who drew a crowd outside
He got them all angry over national pride
He was talking of the war that's on our shore
And how we've never had to fight so hard before
It's a war to fight and a war to win he said
But how do we strike and where to begin?

We want to kill those guilty of the crimes they've made
But they don't live in one city; there's no fortress to invade
This war is psychological and it starts righthere
So in my defiance, I will not live in fear
Because fear is their weapon so I won't give in to that

They know that fear turns to rage, and thats just their trap
The way they win is to make us strike back
They want us to launch a dreadful counterattack
The more people that die at the hand of our nation
The more hate it will breed in the next generation

In this kind of war, they're not after our land
They want their children's blood on our vengeful hands
They want to make us act like an angry mob
So we look like a bully that hates their god

Their plan is to hurt us with our own brute force
Like a herd stampeding down a deadly course
If they can get us running with a rage like this
They can lead the free world off the edge of a cliff

And the cliff is to fall for the trap they've sprung
To make us play the role of the vengeful one
They want us to chase them and hunt them down
To kill their people and burn their towns

The few guilty people are happy to die
If they can make us kill a few thousand more besides
Becuase the death of the innocents just fuels the flame

Until the next war starts and its all the same
And the future unfolds for a hundred years
As the terror grows and it breeds more fear
So who will decide the future of our nation?
Will we follow along with their invitation?

The invitation is to trust our hate
To let revenge define our fate
To never see that it's a different war
And we can't fight the same way we fought before
We're not hunted by a tiger, or a lion or a shark, its more
Like FIRE that's the danger and the enemy's a spark

But the trickiest spin that the devil could twist
Was convincing the world that he didn't exist
If you don't believe in evil, then they're just dangerous men
And you'll fight fire with fire, and you'll be just like them
An eye for an eye, time after time
Eye after eye until the whole world is blind

If our enemy is evil, like a virus of the mind
And its moving through the body of all humankind
Then the evil brilliance of this virus which is hate
Is that our natural reaction makes it replicate

We want to shoot at a target thats easy to find
But the enemy is in us - all humankind
We want to kill the invader like we could in the past
But you can't kill a virus with a shotgun blast
This is not a nation that we're up against
If it's good against evil what's our best defense?

The man on the street was drawing a crowd
Some people got angry and voices got loud
The crowd answered back to the sidewalk guy
That we must have revenge for the people that died
But the man kept talking about love and light
As if that were any way to fight the fight
And a scuffle started and they hauled him in
He was convicted of crimes and convicted of sins
And for national safety and religious pride

That sidewalk preacher was crucified

Posted by Curt at March 7, 2004 05:14 AM