To Ur I'd gone

From ere I've come

Dripping wet with blood of Turks

So thick with which the Tigris runs

Between the graves of ancient works.

Through Euphrates reeds, the Hun

Stole with deadly brace in hand

As we their foe were made undone

By baser foe in our own land.

Snakes concealed in under-hangs.

Others lurked within the rocks.

The worst were those that hid their fangs

And loosed their venom dressed in frocks.

I'm Tom Barry, back from Eden,

Still in soldier's boots and trunk.

I heard of frenzied vipers feeding,

Of Clark and Pearse and Connolly sunk.

Stuporous kith in sad regress,

Uprooted kin, embattled, sapped,

Soiled, fouled without redress,

Enjoined to mire. Baited. Trapped.

From craggy cliffs to bogs they're pressed

By serpents, spawned of would be masters.

I'll consume the legless crawling pests

And spit the soulless hissing bastards.

Where has my father's garden gone?

Is it our looted flower they're hanging?

An invader blights my Babylon

And dins the still with drums a'banging.

I left, a boy, in thirst of war,

A spice which soured in my taste,

So drunk of blood to wish no more

And yet it was a quench in haste.

Oh, my own, my Babylon

A pestilent crop of silence sewn.

We are naught but carrion

If - stilled - we carry on at home.

Home? Is this that place, that we so called?

Where our children should be playing?

Am I but one to be appalled

As Ulster Auxie troops are straying?

Where's our cattle? Where's their fields?

Evicted to such barren rocks,

That nothing but pained hunger yields

To us, the livestock England mocks.

I'm Tom Barry. I've come home.

I'm here to ease your pain.

We'll weed this field so overgrown

And plant our crop again.

As a soldier for the crown

I stood with pride and bayonet.

Now they'd have me truckle down

And put my very soul in debt?

They will hang to pay the bill

For this heart that they would sell.

It's my crop that they now till

And my heaven rot to hell.

Yet, I have heard in Skibbereen

  Does my grovel please you sire?

  I could learn to bend much lower.

  Do your floggers ever tire?

  Should my praise be spoken slower?

More I've heard in Skibbereen

  I yield through station that you bear

  Impressed by clothing that you wear.

  I bow to powder guns of powdered heirs,

  Frozen stiff by icy glares.

 I've heard, too, of late, in Skibbereen

  I'll practice fawning,

  Grateful debtor.

  Although my starving daughter

  Does it better.

  As I am older, so it seems,

  Harder to divest of dreams.

We'll Cork that cask from which they guzzle

Sucking words. To spraying muzzle

And with weary toll they'll watch

The stream of silenced Sassanach.

I'm not a man who's meekly bitter,

Nor will I abide a quitter.

Never has the time been fitter

To cut against the grain.

I've come to ease you of those pains.

For I will wear their bloody stains,

Stains of spit, stains of slaughter,

They'll be blown from every quarter,

As our column crashes down,

To sacrifice on holy ground.

Anointed by their rotting flesh,

I am the heir of Gilgamesh,

Emerald is my malachite

My bog the wood for which I fight.

I'm Tom Barry, late of Ur,

I've come to turn this garden under.

Be you the seed that once you were,

I'll be the rain, the wind, and thunder.