THE BLITZKRIEG

by Harold John Solomon (1907-1986)

(with thanks to the late Senator Reg Wright)

Murder, most foul, goes swaggering down the highways,
The great broad roads that used to lead us home.
Assassination lurks along the byways,
The little byways where we used to roam.

The high road leads to naught but desolation.
A city’s ruins where we used to dwell:
Where once we flushed with life’s anticipation,
Her body rotted where she screamed and fell.

The little son she bore – I never dandled
Him on my knee with father’s foolish pride –
By all the powers of Anti-Christ mishandled,
Tortured and mangled on the roadway, died.

Along the roads that used to seem so kindly.
(Once, lined with leafy trees – now, bare as hell),
Devoid of hope, they staggered dizzy, blindly,
While screaming death from out the heavens fell.

The vast arched sky, that used to seem to love us,
(With azure clear, or towering clouds unfurled,
It seemed to stand protectingly above us),
Erupted death and shattered all our world.

And high above this sea of sin and malice,
Knowing this evil world he set in course,
In a dark chamber of his heavenly palace,
God longed to kill Himself in his remorse.

Postscript. A bold prediction - methinks Carmen Lawrence might just be Australia's first female Prime Minister (sic).