The canary in the coal mine.

　
　
It is brown bread,
and the scarlet tide around the castle,
let’s play pass the parcel,
chop of the king’s head.
 
The usual mawkish kitsch,
what now of summers peach?
as the gold gathers again unto piles,
squandered now those marching miles.
 
It will happen again,
world war three,
they will welcome it with open arms,
“keeps the population down” an old sweat said,
as if we haven’t heard enough of the song of the dead.
 
Tide Moy used to tend his pigeons,
never talked of it,
as he remembered the boys he knew;
once a kind gentleman,
showed me the numbers tattooed on his arm,
come to no harm;
 
the fire is in the grate,
tea is on the table
and the poor you mock today
do you really think they will fall again in muddy,
gas chocked lines,
to preserve your feudal hand?
 
A skylark sings in no mans land,
a sniper shoots it,
to keep his eye in.

~