Let Loose the Dogs of War

Open's poem by Harry Riley is inspired by the current conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Let Loose the Dogs of War
by Harry Riley

Let loose the dogs of war
Let bullets fly and bombs reign down
We have to kill some more.
It’s not our fault, the world must know
We cannot stop we must not fail
We owe it to our unborn child
He has to see, he has to know
The price we had to pay.

Let loose the dogs of war
The time has come for us to win
To show them all that we know how to die
Our cause is just!
We have the right to murder and to main
In our Lords name we shell and shock
And blast them all to hell
They will not learn, we can’t give in
The talking has to stop

Let loose the dogs of war
Have we not heard this before?
We’re born to love and hate and fight
And always it is us that’s right
Our Nation’s God our Nation’s Pride
Where is it now as time moves on?
And the desert sands run red with blood
In the Gaza Strip once more

Let loose the dogs of war
As I grew up I waved my flag
And thought to fight and win
They taught me that our Empire was
The greatest man had known
Yet now I know, as I grow old
The future’s looking dim
Our Empire is a dirty word
I must not say its name

Let loose the dogs of war
We have no choice, the devil calls the day
But will we never learn
To see ourselves for what we are
To give God’s Grace to other souls
To show we know the way to help
And not just how to burn


Harry Riley
Born in Nottingham in 1940 to an Irish Catholic mother and a Methodist father. ‘Brought up for the first six years of my life as the other member of a single parent family and absolutely loved it… being the man of the house through the war.
I’d never met my dad as he’d joined up at the start of the war, becoming a Japanese prisoner on the Changi Railway almost immediately, eventually being found by the British Red Cross after the end of the war. He had a bullet hole in the leg and came home a gaunt stranger who I resented. I admired his courage but never got to know him very well. He died in 1976.
Started writing two years ago: Featured in the Nottingham Evening Post and self published 24 short stories and articles onInternet, 18 video stories on YouTube and just completed a novel set in the Scottish Borders.