Vietnamese Revolutionary Talks to Jesus

Annotation — Australian & New Zealand Songs

Denis Kevans (15 January 1939–2005), a poet from Canberra, Australia, active in the Australian 60s/70s protest movement, taking part in several prominent demonstrations. He wrote, recited, and recorded the anti-Vietnam War poems "Slouch of Vietnam" and "The Great Prawn War", discussed above. On this album, he recited the poem "Vietnamese Revolutionary Talks to Jesus" (Currency Folk # YPRX 2125), which as suggested in the title, was centred around a dialogue between Jesus and someone involved in the Vietnam War. As Jesus recalled his mother standing by the cross, the revolutionary remembered: "I stooped to see my mother's jellied flesh", a reference to chemical weapon Napalm B - a jellied gasoline mixture, with polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Declared a war-crime since 1980, the US government extensively used this weapon during the Vietnam conflict, dropping 388,000 tons on Indochina between 1963 and 1973.123 As Jesus noted that his friends carried him to a grave, the revolutionary said that "I was shallow-buried with forty others", thus recalling the massacres of the Vietnam War.4 Sources1Napalm: An American Biography (Robert M. Neer, 2013)↩2Times Higher Education: Napalm an american biography by robert m neer↩3Napalm, An American Biography (book website)↩4greenleft.org.au: Vietnamese revolutionary talks jesus↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: You say you were six hours on the Cross? / That's true, six hours of sun and dust and sweat / I am still young, and I have been a score / Of years in battle, I was born upon a battlefield / You say your mother stood beneath your Cross? / Yes, my mother and her sister and their friends / I stooped to see my mother's jellied flesh / And passed her sparse long hair across my hands / You say your true friends bore you to your grave? / And placed you there inside with balms and spice? They did, it's true. / I wore the balm of phosphorus / And gas was my incense, and I was shallow-buried with forty others / How long the crown of thorns was on your head? / One night and one day / So short a torment? / I have worn the coronets of wire and steel / For thirty years, and now they bind my nervous flesh / And how much vinegar was thrust into your mouth? / A dab upon a pointed spear / A dab, brother? I have coughed it / By the rusty cup-full / In the torture-rooms at night where men who wear / The Cross you bore, coax life from those like me / Whose arms are pinned, whose mouth is prised / Whose thin legs cannot flail for dull fatigue / How long the scourging that the Romans gave? / Three sessions of thick leather and sharp chunks of lead / Three sessions, brother? / My back is worn / From belting all these years, and now they thrash me on the clotted skin

Notes

Poem recited by Kevans on the album shared with John Dengate.

About the artist

Denis Kevans (15 January 1939 - 2005) - poet from Canberra, ACT, active in the 1960s-70s protest movement; also wrote "Slouch of Vietnam" and "The Great Prawn War".

Themes

Napalm · Religion · Civilian Casualties · VC · Anti-War

In collections

Australian & New Zealand Songs