Wish You Were Here

[LynneSin]

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

That song has me crying everytime I see Pink Floyd play it

[Xipe Totec]

1. Please don't make me cry again

When I see Baghdad, I remember my brethren all over again.


The Fall of Tenochtitlán:

Broken spears lie in the roads;
We have torn our hair in our grief
The houses are roofless now, and their walls
Are red with blood.

Worms are swarming in the streets and plazas,
And the walks are spattered with gore
The water has turned red, as if it were dyed
And when we drink it,
It has the taste of brine

We have pounded our hands in despair
Against the adobe walls,
For our inheritance, our city, is lost and dead
The shields of our warriors were its defense.
But they could not save it.

We have chewed dry twigs and salt grasses:
We have filled our mouths with dust and bits of adobe.
We have eaten lizards, rats and worms
When we had meat, we ate it almost raw.

- Cantares Mexicanos
The National Library of Mexico,
circa 1523

[MrBenchley]

2. From Great Britain's Poet Laureate...

Dear President Bush,
The child who has lost his arms
thought he was catching a ball
when the bomb his enemies dropped
bounced through his dapper hall.
Look at him here in his bed
washed by the camera glare:
the world must know what happened,
and show how truly it cares.
Was it in fact his foes
who threw this thing in his house?
Or was it perhaps his friends -
hence their exceptional fuss?
Guilt is the great disguiser,
blacking the white of the sun.
One thing we know for sure:
the ball goes bouncing on.
--Andrew Motion