All I see is flames

I went to see Adrian Mitchell last night, at the London Review Bookshop. I was a bit worried that it would be an evening of agitprop poems and righteous people saying "yeah!". I needn't have been concerned. Half of the poems were written for kids and the other half were read for entertainment and a good time was had by all.

However, he concluded (as he always does, he said) with his most political poem, or at least his most famous one, and the reason I took an interest in Mitchell in the first place. I have seen the footage of him reading To Whom It May Concern in - I think - the Albert Hall in 1964 or 1965, and it's gripping, gripping in its anger and desperation:

I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I've walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,
Couldn't find myself so I went back to sleep again
So fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames.
Made a marble phone book and I carved all the names
So coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
So stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph drinking slime
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women
Chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I forgot about the poem for years. Even when 9/11 happened and I found myself anticipating vengeance and destruction, it was Auden who came to mind - to my mind, and to many others' too - rather than Mitchell.

And then, some time before the war began but some time after we knew it was going to happen - which ought to place it after the great march of February 15, though for some reason I am sure it was before - I dreamed of war and conflagration. I dreamed of the destruction of the world by fire. Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain. I was shocked when I awoke. I had never dreamed like that before, even though I suffer from nightmares and have them once or twice a week, sometimes more when my peace of mind is particuarly disturbed.

I fear my dreams. I fear them all the more because the reason that I dream the way I do must be because I am afraid. But I never dreamed that dream before, not even during the CND years when it used to be on our minds all the time, when you used to hear military aircraft in the sky - particuarly easy if you were living in Cambridgeshire - and think about it happening.

I always used to think of Crass instead, of They've Got A Bomb and its fantastic, paranoid lines:

They can't wait to use it
They can't wait to use it
They can't wait to try it out

and

Twenty odd years now waiting for the flash

which might sound mad now - oddballs indeed - but which is how it felt at the time, how it felt to worry about it day after day after day. But there were no dreams, until a shocking night twenty years later.

I don't know if I saved it up for all that time. I certainly didn't expect the bombing of Iraq to result in the end of the world by fire. I didn't half-expect it, or even fear it in the way that we feared mutually assured destruction when the Cruise missiles came. But I was unnerved, and fearful in some way, and it took my sleep and left me with a mind full of flame.