All+the+dead+soldiers*

They lie now in their neatly ordered rows Reassembled by the politician’s attempt to recover To deliver some meaning to their futile endeavour. Those who could be found Have been reassembled back out of the ground Others remain in tumbled piles Laid end to end their bones would stretch for miles. All the working class and peasant Johns and all the Mehmets Have fought and died where they met All for many an already lost colonial cause While their more wealthy compatriots struck out on quite another course. As has happened in all the countries in all the years As has happened up and down the rivers of their parents’ tears Mighty men of mighty conquest Have chosen to take the generation**’**s youngest and the best. They have delivered refreshed fertilizer for the grave’s weeds In layer upon layer of the human course All the dead soldiers care little now – of course.
 * (by Mark Grant) || Adaptation G C G C ||
 * All the dead soldiers have nowhere else to go

media type="custom" key="27909839" || G C G C The young men are lined up in their neat endless rows The dull earth hides the fact of their unruly bones G C G C

Bm C Bm C Commandeered and assembled into neat, covered piles G C G C For politicians to publicly reconcile

G C G C

G C G C In neat lined pages they count the recovered To assemble neat meaning for all the fathers and mothers

As the mighty mark their conquests by inches and dreams A dead man’s only a loss when his mangled body can be seen

And the young men who crowded the bars with their dreams Could not imagine their parents tears falling in streams

All the working class Johnnys and all the peasant Mehmets Are now all just the same in the ground where they met

Their dreams sunk in the mud of some absent mens' vision All youthful joy buried under the weight of their new wisdom

And there're are no cameras to capture the smashed empty bottles The screams in the night or the broken man's stumble./shuffle

In the halls, in the squares, in the newspaper pages In stiff, formal letters they're still called up and paraded

Still serving the cause, all of their differences faded Bloodless and wordless with others icons they're laden

And the mighty mark their conquests by inches and dreams A dead man’s only a loss when his mangled body can be seen ||