Tower and Town, November 2016

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Jerusalem

While you sing Jerusalem,
and the milk cow chews her cud,
the khaki boys bite the bullet,
and the poppies are watered with blood.
We all have death on our hands now,
and white spirit won't take out the stain,
and while you all sing your Jerusalem,
the khaki boys trudge through the rain.
The newspapers are all full of lies now,
propaganda has invaded en masse,
and while you're all singing Jerusalem,
the khaki boys choke on the gas.
You don't know the hell you send them now,
to be struck down before they reach their prime,
and while you all sing your Jerusalem,
a young man is shot for ‘cowardly crimes’.
A mother now sits at her table,
looking at the empty place by the stove,
as while she was singing Jerusalem,
her son was shot while facing his foes.
One day we'll all sit and wonder,
just what there could have been,
if we hadn't been singing Jerusalem,
while the khaki boys died overseas. 

Emily Copplestone