Blog

Categories
Artists/Contributors
Latest Posts
Archives

The Baghdad Blues

Click here for audio.

[Shout out to Jessica Philie for verse #3]

Graduated from high school
wanted not to be abused, a tool,
I needed money to get me my piece of paper
signed up for the White Man’s military capers.

Surprised to find myself on a transport boat
shipped across the wide, blue Atlantic moat.
You know the rest of the tale she wrote
or maybe then again you don’t. (See, I’ve been)

Chorus: shootin at brown people in the sand
giving Halliburton and Bechtel a hand
on what principles will we take a stand
I am a Patriot devoted to this land.

Got off the boat in a base in Basra
saw people everywhere, running around, lost and found
a colonial country getting slowly beaten down

Off on a convoy, in a Humvee
every twenty seconds, dodging RPGs
paying elevated fees to contractees
all the pills they got can’t stop the shakin in my knees (since we’ve been)

Chorus: shootin at brown people in the sand
giving Halliburton and Bechtel a hand
on what principles will we take a stand
I am a Patriot devoted to this land.

[Female voice] Look away, look away from the bombings on TV
My soldier’s over there instead of taking care of me
And our house and our dog and our family of three
His one weekend a month has turned into weeks,

Months, a year. Will he come back from there?
Our kids no longer miss him and I think I’m losing hair.
I’m a feeder, a cleaner, a driver, a teacher.
I need handouts and a loan just to keep up our home (Cuz they’ve been)

Chorus: shootin at brown people in the sand
giving Halliburton and Bechtel a hand
on what principles will we take a stand
I am a Patriot devoted to this land.

Driving up north in the Sunni triangle
feeling pride in a flag starry spangled
suddenly I find myself in metal tangled
from my hip what used to be my leg now dangles

my buddy’s in the driver’s seat, his body incomplete.
Where he sat before, now sits a piece of meat.
The flag on his coffin folded nice and neat,
in the wintertime, his widow won’t get enough heat (‘cause we’ve been)

Chorus: shootin at brown people in the sand
giving Halliburton and Bechtel a hand
on what principles will we take a stand
I am a
Matriot devoted to the planet.

1 Comment »

  1. Ah, The Baghdad Blues has–unfortunately–a longer history than many Americans, and others, care to recognize.

    Your readers might want to know about Sinan Antoon’s new book, bearing this title as well: The Baghdad Blues, poems, distributed through Small Press Distribution (www.spdbooks.org).

    You can find a link to Sinan Antoon’s Democracy Now! interview with Amy Goodman (in which he reads from The Baghdad Blues) by going to http://www.harbormountainpress.com

    Many thanks,
    –P.

    http://www.petermoneypoetry.com

    Comment by Peter Money — July 31, 2007 @ 9:28 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

The DC Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency (GPI) is an anti-authoritarian, collaborative, pro-humanity artists' collective incorporating music, rhythm, spoken word, community and resistance.

Contact Us

For more info or to inquire about availability to perform:

(800) 886-6157
dcgpi@guerrillapoets.org

Sign up for annoucements by visiting: DC-GPI Announce

Join Us



Search