Yes, you can!

 

Credit

Come, show me a different face, you know you can;

take off that helmet, close those cocked gun eyes,

collect and still in your lap those grenade hands

and wipe up that small smudge of blood and lies

 

from your lips, that dribble of hate, go on;

finally switch off that screen, delete that plan

just stop carrying someone else’s weapon,

rise and reach into yourself, you know you can.

 

Let the flashing blades of all your cruel words

rust to dust, all triggers jam, all arms fail;

there are many other things, far, far worse

than a loss of will for hatred to prevail.

 

The planet is your country; you do not want

to create another random battlefront.

Another ancient one from the archives, I don't think I ever put it up here. Was going through the stuff I was writing ten years ago and this felt it needed airing here today. 

Uff, I'm so tired of seeing millions suffer at the whims of a few delusional, arrogant old men.

Paper boats

Photo by Artak Petrosyan on Unsplash 

Paper boats on the river,

house of cards on the sands;

love walks on calloused feet,

winds wipe off the prints inland.

It stops sometimes, slumps and limps -

that too shows up in the prints.

Parchment leaves on the water,

fragile webs on a twig;

hope’s hands are slowly bleeding

popping dreams far too big.

The glass is cracked, the ice melts,

the heat is high, there is no help.

The brands are stocked in the shops, 

contract’s signed on dotted lines,

the top’s all yearly bonus,

the bottom marks overtime.

This glass ceiling’s pretty cute

depending on the side that’s viewed.

Fake and antifake uptrend,

history is just a hashtag -

edit, crop, rotate to suit.

There are two sides to each flag.

Several stripes, wheels, rockstars,

each with its own piece of war.

Back to writing it as it comes and keeping it short. Less agony for all concerned parties :) Still a little hungover, seem to be obsessed with rivers and riverine stuff such as confluences and boats, wonder why?  

The day's already getting noticeably shorter, light's failing by five thirty. I love all seasons, but autumn is my favourite, except I miss the long daylight of summer. But happy to do without the heat. The festival season is round the corner. Always a time for quiet glee. 

And it's also time for the spooky challenge sign ups over at Write...Edit...Publish...nothing quiet about that, I assure you...

Take that helmet off!

Come show me a different face, you know you can;

take off that helmet, close those cocked gun eyes,

collect and still in your lap those grenade hands

and wipe up that small smudge of blood and lies

from your lips, that dribble of hate, go on;

finally switch off that screen, delete that plan

just stop carrying someone else’s weapon,

rise and reach into yourself, you know you can.

Let the flashing blades of all your cruel words

rust to dust, all triggers jam, all arms fail;

there are many other things, far, far worse

than a loss of will for violence to prevail.

The planet is your country; you do not want

to create another random battlefront.

Disengage for victory

"The pioneer's of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service."  - Albert Einstein

The victory’s in staying home, where unsung

won’t be juxtaposed with hero and young;

the quiet of unwarlike tasks and boredom

and no empty coats with flapping sleeves hung

up in hushed closets for years. In upfront

flash of a different courage, the blunt

slam of refusal, and no engagement.

Let the lad choose what he does and doesn’t

for goodness’ sake, glory can be clawed and won

in nothing raised, not raging arms, nor weapon

just keen shoulderblades and clean, cleft burdens -

much glory but no fame in that being done.

The power’s out, so I’ve no torches to lob

take this my staunch yes and no and do the job. 

Saw that quote from Einstein floating around on social media a few days ago, and so this is a response poem.  

Ashoka, after Kalinga

The few who return home from here

will never again be quite whole.
Combat zones. Courage and fear.
So many ways to shrink the soul.

 

Not just flesh that is sliced open,

it’s not just bodies that blades maim;
violence plants its secret weapon
and those that return won’t be the same.

 

The tips of arrows, heads of spears

end of day are plucked from skin;
but war is too hard to pluck clear
from the heart once the blade goes in.

 

There could be other paths, directions,

fields, where it’s not this one battle
and maybe they too change a person
they’re not the same once they travel;

 

I’ll take that road and see for myself

if peace can be found a different route,
if a change in travel plans will help
and a war-free way to be will suit.








 

Romantic Friday Writers March Challenge

This month the challenge over at Romantic Friday Writers is designed as a tribute to the Roman god Mars, patron of war and agriculture.  Mars is a cold and impersonal god, caring more for the battle than its outcome, which makes perfect sense to me because if a god ever cared for the outcomes, there would  never be any wars in the first place.  Read more about the challenge here.

The trigger for me was the word self-sacrifice. Combine that with deceit and romance, and immediately an enticing picture of old fortress ruins with their colourful legends comes to mind.  May I just add that this here tale is completely imaginary, no Dwijen or his lady love exist, at least not to my knowledge.


In Arabic, there was/is a tradition of monorhyme in poetry, and I have always wanted to try it. So, I sat myself down and this is what happened, not exactly monorhyme, but as close as I got.  Way over the word limit, but what's an extra hundred between poets/writers? :) Hope you enjoy it!

Fields

War is not the only arena where peace is done to death ~ Aung San Suu Kyi, at her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

It’s true that war isn’t the only battlefield

where peace is stabbed to death, shred

into pieces by missiles, it’s also peeled

off by gentle hands and torn stone dead

every day in closed cells and sealed

yards, small rooms and the sweep of widespread

placid nods of automated heads.

 

 

And prisons too come in myriad forms

tightly curled buds, cells, walls, snug cocoons.

All life must constantly escape its homes

constantly force open the petals of fortunes

and sail on unknown winds, transform

painfully, trim, hack and prune

and all the same, die all too soon.

There is the life of prisons far away
and there’s life on a different plane
but violence filed in both their dossiers
repeated exercises of mechanical pain
hope and faith are so easy to mislay
when peace is shelled and shot again and again
in all-pervasive, relentless campaigns.

There are deaths on battlefields, and foetuses

strangled in wombs and quickly disposed
or else unborn still, taught clever bypasses
to adult war formations that closed
about warriors aeons ago. We repeat all the losses,
no lessons are learnt, no hostilities paused
only time and technicalities transposed.