1919

• You’re forbidden to put it into words
•     so you put it into guns.
• When a democracy killed a million of its own
•    it didn’t seem absurd
• to kill another’s democracy
•     by splitting its tongue.
• Who attacked first in defence of that democracy
•   becomes a mere intellectual exercise
• when the thief is already in the house.
•   He brought bloody footsteps from the trenches
• and the fires he set are still to be doused.
•   But he still thinks he’s right on all accounts
• with a confidence that wrenches.

Wilson John Haire.  10th February, 2019.