The Drone’s Lament – A poem for the Prime Minister (with respects to James K Baxter’s The Gunner’s Lament)

The Drone’s Lament

A Muslim kid lay dying
In an opium field south of Bamyan,
And he said to his GCSB drone,
“I reckon you’ve got it wrong, man!

‘And if I could fly like a hell fire missile
To your whare
An IED and a Koran could never drag
Me away from vengeance.

‘A cup of rice and an AK-47
Looked better than another occupation,
And they told me that Muhammad
Would have fought in the Afghan battle.

‘On my last leave the village was bombed
Like a bucket full of guts.
The girls screamed in unison
And I weeped for the girls.

‘Like lambs to the abattoirs
In the name of freedom
You flew 13609 kilometres
to kill for that liberty,

‘And what you found in Afghanistan
Was mud and blood and fire,
With the Yanks and the Taliban taking turns
At murdering the poor.

‘And I saw no reason for it
In a drones blazing eye –
We fought for the crops of poppies
And you are fighting behind the poppy.

‘So go tell my family
To get another boy
Who’ll stand at night against your death
And who’ll cry when the bombs blow,

‘And tell my youngest brother
He can have my rifle
To fire at the soldiers on the mountain road,
But not to aim it at the children,

‘And tell my mother to wear black
And carry the missile’s fin,
Because the kid she kept from the cold
Has eaten the white man’s sin.

‘And go and tell John Key
Sitting in Wellington,
However long he scrubs his hands
He’ll never get them clean.’