"Waltzing Bloody Matilda-II"

Isto, agora, já é a sério, ham?

Um dos mais espantosos e arrepiantes poemas que conheço está numa canção de Eric Bogle [logo que tenham um minutinho livre, fazem-me o favor vão ao "Tube" e procuram em "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" e digo-vos já que se conseguirem ouvir 'aquilo' sem se arrepiarem todos [e todas] e sentirem um nó na garganta, estão loucos!---loucos, ouviram?!--- e não andam cá a fazer nada porque são um perigo para a Humanidade---seja lá o que for que isso signifique mas enfim, isso é outra "estória" que não vem agora ao caso...]

Se lá forem, como vivamente vos recomendo [que a vida não são só "novelas" da TVI, oh, vós que me escutais!...] levem papel---que é como quem diz, levem um papelinho com a respectiva letra que aqui vos deixo para uso e meditação de quantos passam a vida a berrar "Para um Afeganistão ou um Iraque qualquer---já e em força!"

Se calhar [e tiverem juízo o que eu duvido: quem é que nasceu em Portugal por ter juízo?

Se tivessem juízo os portugueses iam nascer mas era fora e só depois é que vinham---foi o que eu sempre disse...] mas, então, para acabar a minha ideia: leiam e se calhar depois já não vos apetece tanto "borregar" atrás de um imbecil qualquer que se lembre, de repente, que "fazer guerras dá de comer a não-sei-quantos milhões de portugueses"...

Quer dizer: dar, dá---dá SEMPRE!

Resta saber é a quais...

WALTZING MATILDA

Now when I was a young man

I carried me pack

And I lived the free life of the rover.

From the Murray's green basin

to the dusty outback,

Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.

Then in 1915, my country said,

"Son,It's time you stop ramblin',

there's work to be done."

So they gave me a tin hat,

and they gave me a gun,

And they marched me away to the war.

And the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"

As the ship pulled away from the quay,

And amidst all the cheers,

the flag waving,

and tears,

We sailed off for Gallipoli.

And how well I remember that terrible day,

How our blood stained the sand and the water;

And of how in that hell

that they call Suvla Bay

We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.

Johnny Turk, he was waitin',

he primed himself well;

He showered us with bullets,

and he rained us with shell

--And in five minutes flat,

he'd blown us all to hell,

Nearly blew us right back to Australia.

But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"

When we stopped to bury our slain,

Well, we buried ours,

and the Turks buried theirs,

Then we started all over again.

And those that were left,

well, we tried to survive

In that mad world of blood, death and fire.

And for ten weary weeks

I kept myself alive

Though around me the corpses piled higher.

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,

And when I woke up in me hospital bed

And saw what it had done,

well, I wished I was dead.

--Never knew there was worse things than dying

For I'll go no more "Waltzing Matilda,"

All around the green bush far and free

--To hump tents and pegs, a man needs both legs,

No more "Waltzing Matilda" for me.

So they gathered the crippled,

the wounded, the maimed,

And they shipped us back home to Australia.

The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane,

Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.

And as our ship sailed into Circular Quay,

I looked at the place where me legs used to be,

And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,

To grieve, to mourn and to pity.

But the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"

As they carried us down the gangway,

But nobody cheered,

they just stood and stared,

Then they turned all their faces away.

And so now every April,

I sit on me porch

And I watch the parade pass before me.

And I see my old comrades,

how proudly they march,

Reviving old dreams of past glory,

And the old men march slowly,

all bones stiff and sore,

They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war

And the young people ask

"What are they marching for?"

And I ask meself the same question.

But the band plays "Waltzing Matilda,"

And the old men still answer the call,

But as year follows year,

more old men disappear

Someday, no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda.

Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

And their ghosts may be heard

as they march by that billabong,

Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

Eric Bogle