Yemeni lives matter
Iraqi lives too
Syrians are human beings
Just like me and you
Yemeni lives matter
We are the things we do
We make the bombs that kill babies
We avert our view
Pakistanis bleed
They eat and shit and screw
Like the people you know
They love their children too
We sell ourselves a story
When we do bad things
But our guilt cries out
Like a bell that always rings
by Richard W. Bray
maybe when the grownups
start acting grown
we’ll stop choosing money
over flesh and bone
maybe when the grownups
start acting grown
we’ll send compassion
instead of drones
maybe when the grownups
start acting grown
we’ll pick up a child
and put down the phone
maybe when the grownups
start acting grown
we’ll take care of each other
and cast away stones
by Richard W. Bray
All you crazy dreamers
You silly, silly fools
Wanting Medicare for all
And parks and roads and schools
All you crazy dreamers
You’re such a bunch of clowns
Bitching and moaning
When our bridges fall down
All you crazy dreamers
You’re so full of boloney
We can’t protect ourselves
With rainbows and ponies
All you crazy dreamers
You’ll never understand
We blow up other countries
For a stronger Homeland
It’s a mean and scary world
If you really love your moms
You’d spend all your money
On guns and tanks and bombs
by Richard W. Bray
Love don’t do the dishes
Love won’t tie your shoes
Love didn’t cook your dinner
Love can’t change a fuse
Love will not protect us
Love cannot atone
Love don’t stop our leaders
From dropping all those drones
Love don’t bomb no babies
Love don’t start no wars
We do a trillion ugly things
Love ain’t keeping score
Love won’t fix the shower
Love can’t brush your hair
The only thing it’s good for
Is making people care
by Richard W. Bray
They wanna count you, classify you
Stamp a number on your head
Aggravate you, allocate you
Every day until you’re dead
They sanitize and organize you
Till you fit in the machine
Hypnotize you, terrorize you
Till you’re lonely scared and mean
Indoctrinate you, fill-with-hate you
And nourish you with lies
Calibrate you, automate you
And march you off to die
by Richard W. Bray
Strength is all
They understand
Be undaunted
Be a man
Be resolute
And stay the course
With muscular vigor
And robust force
Stout resolve
And rugged might
Are all you need
When you are right
Be diligent
And brave and strong
Send more guns
And drop more bombs
by Richard W. Bray
Sing a song of freedom
Sing a song of war
The happy, hearty hegemon
Hears the eagle roar
He will cheer to loose the hounds
But he simply can’t be found
With the boots that hit the ground
Sing of liberation
Sing a song of war
Intrepid chairborne ranger
Like a strapping rogue of yore
But he’ll never be around
When the guns and missiles pound
Razing village to the ground
Sing of credibility
Sing a song of war
Gallant think tank warrior
Is manly to the core
In pools of blood they drown
As he buys another round
With his dirty, ill-gained Crown
by Richard W. Bray
You can send a man to war
Make him watch his buddies die
Don’t even say what they died for
You can even make him cry
You can cut all his rations
Down to the nitty-gritty
But the last thing a man wants
Is pity
You can send his job away
Cut his salary in half
You can abuse him every day
You can have yourself a laugh
You can take away his home
And brutalize his city
But the last thing a man wants
Is pity
Take the country that he loves
And starve it half to death
You can give his heart a shove
You can steal his dying breath
You can trample on his pride
And make his whole world shitty
But the last thing a man wants
Is pity
by Richard W. Bray
We have what it takes to set you free
Money and bullets and boots and blood
We’re everything that you want to be
The model of modern society
Wash away fossils in crimson flood
We have what it takes to set you free
Inside you is a another form of me
We’re putting our values out to stud
We’re everything that you want to be
We’re the glory of all humanity
So embrace your liberation, Bud
We have what it takes to set you free
Steaming hot piles of Democracy
Fashioning our dominion of mud
We’re everything that you want to be
Bombs build dreams like factories
Shimmering cities on a hill of crud
We have what it takes to set you free
We’re everything that you want to be
by Richard W. Bray
Sorrow seems more general than it did, and not the estate of a few persons, since the war began; and if the anguish of others helped one with one’s own, now would be many medicines.
—Emily Dickinson
Suffer, squirm, and die
I hope your life is hell
Your hurt is my elixir
I’m doing pretty well
Your torment is my tonic
Your pain is my success
I pray for mass affliction
I feed on your distress
Your agony refreshes
And fills my world with joy
The cure for all that ails
Is to damage and destroy
Misery rejuvenates
It whitens every stain
All of my misfortune
Is abolished in your pain
by Richard W. Bray
