It is said we live in modern times,
In the civilised year of ‘seventy nine,
But when I look around, all I see,
Is modern torture, pain, and hypocrisy.
In modern times little children die,
They starve to death, but who dares ask why?
And little girls without attire,
Run screaming, napalmed, through the night afire.
And while fat dictators sit upon their thrones,
Young children bury their parents’ bones,
And secret police in the dead of night,
Electrocute the naked woman out of sight.
In the gutter lies the black man, dead,
And where the oil flows blackest, the street runs red,
And there was He who was born and came to be,
But lived and died without liberty.
As the bureaucrats, speculators and presidents alike,
Pin on their dirty, stinking, happy smiles tonight,
The lonely prisoner will cry out from within his tomb,
And tomorrow’s wretch will leave its mother’s womb!
In the civilised year of ‘seventy nine,
But when I look around, all I see,
Is modern torture, pain, and hypocrisy.
In modern times little children die,
They starve to death, but who dares ask why?
And little girls without attire,
Run screaming, napalmed, through the night afire.
And while fat dictators sit upon their thrones,
Young children bury their parents’ bones,
And secret police in the dead of night,
Electrocute the naked woman out of sight.
In the gutter lies the black man, dead,
And where the oil flows blackest, the street runs red,
And there was He who was born and came to be,
But lived and died without liberty.
As the bureaucrats, speculators and presidents alike,
Pin on their dirty, stinking, happy smiles tonight,
The lonely prisoner will cry out from within his tomb,
And tomorrow’s wretch will leave its mother’s womb!
Contributed by Bernart Bartleby - 2014/8/13 - 12:10
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Versi di Bobby Sands, dalla raccolta “Prison Poems”, pubblicata nel 1981.
Alcune poesie di Bobby Sands, compresa questa (e The Sleeping Rose, e A Place to Rest), sono state messe in musica da un gruppo austriaco, i Rasthof Dachau (genere industrial), nel loro disco (pubblicato nel 2006) intitolato come la raccolta poetica del combattente repubblicano morto in carcere nel 1981.
Una poesia in cui Sands non si concentra sull’Ulster ma da vero internazionalista condanna gli orrori delle dittature, delle occupazioni, del razzismo, dello sfruttamento in tutto il mondo…
Nella seconda strofa è descritta molto chiaramente la famosa foto della bambina vietnamita in fuga con il corpicino nudo ustionato dal napalm…