Donal Óg

by Aoife O'Donovan

Black as night is this heart within me
Black as coal is this grief that drives me
Black as bootprints on polished hallways
And it's you who have blackened it forever and always

For you've taken what's before and behind me
East and west when you would not mind me
Sun, moon, and stars from the sky you've taken
And God, as well, if I'm not mistaken

Oh, Donal Óg, you'll not find me lazy
Not like some high-born expensive lady
I'll do your milking, and I'll nurse your baby
And if you were set upon, I'll defend you bravely

When all beside a vigil keep
The West's asleep, the West's asleep
Alas! and well may Erin weep
When Connaught lies in slumber deep
There lake and plain smile fair and free
'Mid rocks their guardian chivalry

The Valley of Malls

by Adam Schlesinger

The King of Araby is coming home today
It's bumper touching bumper on the motorway
The sun is in the sky just now
But the road is grey
They drive in Winnebagos from the Everglades
Pulled over by the troopers in the mirror shades
The Caravan is sorry
The driver has a twenty and change

And we're leaving all the road for dead
We're getting tired of the twists and turns
You got to go when human nature calls
We're driving, we're driving
Through the valley of malls

And God forgive the passengers if we should fail
To find a penny fountain or a half-off sale
I need a merchant
I just started searching for a holy grail
Fighting for the freedom from a common band
To be a barracuda in the guppy pond
So little time for so many things to try on

Noël nouvelet

Traditional

Noël nouvelet, Noël chantons ici
devotes gens, crions a Dieu merci
Chantons Noël pour le Roi nouvelet
Noël nouvelet Noël chantons ici

En Bethleem Marie et Josephis
l'âne et le boeuf, l'enfant couché au lit
La crèche était au lieu d'un bercelet
Noël nouvelet Noël chantons ici

L'étoile y vis qui la nuit éclaircit
Qui d'Orient ou elle avait sorti
En Bethleem les trois Rois amenet
Noël nouvelet Noël chantons ici

L'un portant l'or, l'autre la myrrhe aussi
l'autre l'encens qu'il faisait bon sentir
Du paradis semblait le jardinet
Noël nouvelet Noël chantons ici

En trente jours Noël fut accompli
En douze vers sera mon chant fini
En chacun jours j'en ai fait un couplet
Noël nouvelet Noël chantons ici

I Feel Free

by Jack Bruce

Feel when I dance with you
We move like the sea
You're all I want to know
I feel free, I feel free, I feel free

I can walk down the street, there's no one there
Though the pavements are one huge crowd
I can drive down the road, my eyes don't see
Though my mind wants to cry out loud

Dance floor is like the sea
Ceiling is the sky
You're the sun, and as you shine on me
I feel free, I feel free, I feel free

Surrender Under Protest

by Mike Cooley

From the comfort zone of history
On the lips of trusted loved ones
To the wounded fragile minds of angry youth
No sooner was it over
Than the memory made it nobler
A selective means by which to point the view

If it's all you can remember
Then it's been that way forever
And for six long generations it's been told
That among the fallen was tradition
That tradition was the mission
That the wrongness of the sin was not the goal

Does the color really matter
On the face you blame for failure
On the shaming for a battle's losing cause
If the victims and aggressors
Just remain each other's others
And the instigators never fight their own

Compelled but not defeated
Surrender under protest if you must
Compelled but not defeated

A Terre

(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)
by Wilfred Owen

Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
Both arms have mutinied against me — brutes.
My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.

I tried to peg out soldierly — no use!
One dies of war like any old disease.
This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.
I have my medals? — Discs to make eyes close.
My glorious ribbons? — Ripped from my own back
In scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.)

A short life and a merry one, my brick!
We used to say we'd hate to live dead old, —
Yet now . . . I'd willingly be puffy, bald,
And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys
At least the jokes hurled at them. I suppose
Little I'd ever teach a son, but hitting,
Shooting, war, hunting, all the arts of hurting.
Well, that's what I learnt, — that, and making money.
Your fifty years ahead seem none too many?
Tell me how long I've got? God! For one year
To help myself to nothing more than air!
One Spring! Is one too good to spare, too long?
Spring wind would work its own way to my lung,
And grow me legs as quick as lilac-shoots.
My servant's lamed, but listen how he shouts!
When I'm lugged out, he'll still be good for that.
Here in this mummy-case, you know, I've thought
How well I might have swept his floors for ever,
I'd ask no night off when the bustle's over,
Enjoying so the dirt. Who's prejudiced
Against a grimed hand when his own's quite dust,
Less live than specks that in the sun-shafts turn,
Less warm than dust that mixes with arms' tan?
I'd love to be a sweep, now, black as Town,
Yes, or a muckman. Must I be his load?

O Life, Life, let me breathe, — a dug-out rat!
Not worse than ours the existences rats lead —
Nosing along at night down some safe vat,
They find a shell-proof home before they rot.
Dead men may envy living mites in cheese,
Or good germs even. Microbes have their joys,
And subdivide, and never come to death,
Certainly flowers have the easiest time on earth.
"I shall be one with nature, herb, and stone."
Shelley would tell me. Shelley would be stunned;
The dullest Tommy hugs that fancy now.
"Pushing up daisies," is their creed, you know.
To grain, then, go my fat, to buds my sap,
For all the usefulness there is in soap.
D'you think the Boche will ever stew man-soup?
Some day, no doubt, if . . .
Friend, be very sure
I shall be better off with plants that share
More peaceably the meadow and the shower.
Soft rains will touch me, — as they could touch once,
And nothing but the sun shall make me ware.
Your guns may crash around me. I'll not hear;
Or, if I wince, I shall not know I wince.
Don't take my soul's poor comfort for your jest.
Soldiers may grow a soul when turned to fronds,
But here the thing's best left at home with friends.

My soul's a little grief, grappling your chest,
To climb your throat on sobs; easily chased
On other sighs and wiped by fresher winds.

Carry my crying spirit till it's weaned
To do without what blood remained these wounds.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

by Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
Then later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feeling?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
When the wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
'Twas the witch of November come stealing
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck
Saying, 'Fellas, it's too rough to feed you'
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in
He said, 'Fellas, it's been good to know you'
The captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below, Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go, as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early