Friday 7 January 2011

One Finger in Ten

The sparrows were driven from the sky
Kept aloft till they dropped dead unable to fly
The fields were tilled till they could yield no more
But grain was left to rot side by side
Along with those who had stumbled and died
Desperate hands loaded ships for a far off shore
Leaving behind those in starving convulsion
Feeding instead the Maoist Revolution


All possessions stripped till there was nothing left to give
The clothes on your back, your hair, a sieve
Logic and compassion all came to cease
No great leap forward but a lurch into despair
A nation cracking in disrepair
Where life was measured in lifeless bodies
And blood not water flowed through deserted courses
Draining what was left of abandoned corpses

When eyes could not see when right was wrong
Fifty million dead and Mau Zedong.
When one finger in ten is a price worth paying
Yet nine in ten paid in poverty and slaying.

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