Oh white dove
Fly over and above
The troubled plains of Guinea
Coo peace, halt this coup.
Guinea needs love
Now more than ever.
Oh white dove
Flap your tender wings
Over Yenge, over Conakry
Over Assemblée Nationale.
Guinea needs love
Forgive us, white dove.
We have faltered
Our hearts heavy with regret
Bring solace to our land
Heal the wounds we’ve let.
Guinea needs love
Grant us peace, white dove.
The bric-a-brac shop waits on Rue Nationale.
In a sleepy French town.
It opens at ten,
And closes at one,
Till three.
Then on till seven in the evening.
Madame opens the shutters
Before going to feed her little dog,
Hettie.
Hettie's toenails clip clop on the ceramic tiles.
Madame feeds her green beans and tuna from a tin.
Hettie barks.
Madame sits at her counter
And waits for mail.
A customer comes in.
"Bonjour!"
"Bonjour. Ca va?"
A deal is done on a 1920s doll.
Three hundred euros until Christmas.
A good gift for a collector.
But no more customer's today.
All is quiet.
Evening comes.
Hettie barks.
She eats and drinks.
Madame is always kind. Hettie knows.
She clip clops to her basket again.
Madame thinks about her man in England.
She smiles, but no-one sees.
She shuts the shutters and puts out the lights.
Another evening alone with Hettie and the TV.
Her man is waiting. Her man is waiting.
Fete Nationale finally came about on July 14th 1789
When the commoners stormed the Bastile so fine.
Their crops had failed that summer, and it went to their head.
They were spending ninety-percent of their salary on bread
The Tyranny of King Louis the Fourteenth was not sliding by
His wife was lavishly spending, and they owned the gun power supply.
Prisoners were being locked up in the Bastile with no trial whatsoever.
So the French Revolution was started – a worthwhile endeavor.
Marianne (Bearer of Tricolour)
Marianne, the Goddess of Liberty and bearer of Tricolour,
Triumphant French Republic revolutionary figure,
Evokes solidarity with breasts exposed and barefooted,
Wearing a Phrygian cap and armed with a bayoneted musket.
Personifier of liberty and reason for the French citizen,
Symbolizing wife, mother, and emancipated feminist.
From atop dead Parisians, she leads victory’s charge;
« En avant les citoyens, la guerre n'est pas finie:
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité; la démocratie prévaudra! »
(“Onward citizens, the war is not over:
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; democracy will prevail!”)
“Sing! Let ‘La Marseillaise’ reverberate throughout France!”
Le 14 juillet, la Fête Nationale (Bastille Day, the 14th of July);
« Vive la France libre! » (“Long live free France!”)
***
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