I first saw you in the guardroom
Of the interrogation centre
In Sulaimaniya in Kurdistan
After the Gulf War
They took me in to see you
They asked me if I knew you
You had been arrested
With thousands of dinars
My carelessness had led the
Iraqis to arrest me
On the road to Halabja
Questioned for some hours
Then they took me to the guardroom
And left us there together
To see if either would betray
Anything they could use
A doctor's wage at that time
Was ten dinars monthly
In Baghdad in the destruction
After the Gulf War
And you'd been caught with thousands
In wads of bundled fifties
You must have known the risk you took
As you walked out that day
You were quite short and dumpy
Your hair was thin and wispy
Your eyes were greyish blue, I think,
Though I sat across the room
Your Kurdish trousers hung there
Your shirt tight across your belly
Your darting eyes were begging
What harm could I do you
You didn't sit up proudly
You didn't sit defiant
Your courage lay just in the fact
You could sit up at all
Your every tiny movement
Betrayed your inner panic
The quivering of your cheeks made clear
You full well knew the score
There'd have been no rousing speeches
There'd have been no comrades with you
As they routinely tortured you
You would have screamed alone
There'd have been no calls for courage
As they bent you for your bullet
There'd have been no one there for you
To sing your spirit home
There was no way that I could help you
No way that I could think of
A frightened outsider
In the hands of a murderous power
But I've spent years now hoping,
Though I'll never know the answer
That I didn't make things worse for you
In your final hours
I am not a brave man
I've no particular courage
Anger doesn't help a lot,
And tears don't last for long
What can I say or scribble
To make more than the slightest difference
What use are pleas for courage
And what use is this song?
What can I say or scribble
To make more than the slightest difference
What use are pleas for courage
And what use is this song?
Back to main index
of songs and poems