War (Remove filter)
All Has Turned Red (Merry Christmas, I Guess?)
Today as I scrolled through my feed.
I saw a child's mutilated body,
Laid bare for all to see.
A bomb it had been,
If I trust the caption at least,
That had destroyed this child,
Their dreams, their hopes, their love, their life.
The agony was too much for poor
little me to bear.
I am only seventeen, you see,
ignoring that the child on the screen
Looked no day over three.
I wanted to ...
Tuesday 26th December 2023 7:28 pm
The Dance
In the oh-Christ odour of battle,
The stunned silence of snipered streets,
They will still be doing their thing -
Plying their dark entertainment
Of tango from another world:
Two oiled figures, out of age,
Swaying to the squeezebox rhythm,
Legs hypnotically intertwined,
With an unspoken whiff of sex,
Which ramps up the indecency.
Only a matter of time now.
Below, a...
Saturday 23rd December 2023 8:26 am
Stamping Ground
Not much goes on around my way;
It’s probably the same near you:
The brutes of buildings, boarded shops,
Unyielding gloom, the angry street,
The young, with nothing else to do.
So when they said I should join up,
I thought to myself: ‘Well, why not?’
It seemed a chance to break away
Into a blast of a cleaner air.
Nobody said I would get shot.
So now I lie be...
Sunday 17th December 2023 7:52 am
Nativity
How has the shrine of wisdom and manger
Become a nightmare of fear and danger?
Lives tossed aside, like unwanted presents,
Of factory workers and toiling peasants?
How has Christmas, day of celebration,
Been transformed into a desecration,
Where the rocket, mortar, the flag and fist
Are the only currencies which subsist,
And the welcome afforded to a guest
Is replaced b...
Thursday 14th December 2023 1:35 pm
Birds
Each time that I observe the world,
I should spy beauty, peace and love.
Each time I listen, I should hear
The soft song of birds, or at most
The low hum of conversation.
But when I crane my neck,
Look up, down or sideways,
In front or behind me,
Or at some frantic screen,
Or catch imagined exploits,
Mouthed off on a train, or neighbours,
Hyped up in angry gatepos...
Thursday 7th December 2023 8:44 am
Somewhere
Gaza: a father beats the floor in grief
As he feels his son’s last desperate breath.
It seems indecent to say any more,
As when, that evil Saturday morning,
A Holocaust survivor was cut down
During a crimson-coloured bout of rage.
I tell myself: this cannot be the best
That humankind has to offer. One day,
The innocent will inherit the Earth,
The puffball types in unifor...
Thursday 16th November 2023 5:37 pm
Cold Wind
A cold wind is blowing;
It makes its way in,
It seeps through the brick
And clings to the skin.
It pierces the heart
With icy disdain
And somehow compels you
To look up again.
And when you look up
What is it you see?
No castle, no garden,
No landscape, no tree;
Just untidy death
Of industrial scale.
Now all human life
Is a second-hand sale.
Thursday 9th November 2023 5:13 pm
Hell
In Hell, the flames are rising;
Bodies lie, in respectful rows.
The dead are remembered, mourned;
As grieving begins, the missing are missed.
Borders, faith? It all means nothing;
Flags and fat commanders are a joke.
If one could define tragedy,
This is a tragedy.
And yet, what happens, happens.
The usual suspects dish out blame,
But few of us are free from blame...
Thursday 2nd November 2023 7:40 am
What is evil
What now, what is evil?
I’m sure we can agree
if killing just one child is awful,
thousands more must be
evil’s outright apogee.
No problem pegging evil.
But how to deal with evil?
Find the men (we know
it’s mainly men). Pronounce those people
lowest of the low.
Blazon what they did, and show
those men to be pure evil.
Now, certain who is evil,
you’...
Wednesday 1st November 2023 10:31 am
Circus
They weep in Israel;
They weep in Palestine.
They weep in Ukraine.
The whole world should weep.
Time drifts by, faster than we think;
Death queues for its daily spoils.
Someone always cleans up afterwards.
The stubbornly alive cling on to love.
Condolences rain down;
Groups huddle, trying to empathise
And multiply excuses,
While a few, buoyed up by the circus ...
Sunday 29th October 2023 8:29 am
Voice
Each time he gave voice to pity, to waste –
'Abstract values' in a certain parlance –
Some people would turn and say: ‘That’s no good;
You have to take sides, find someone to blame,
Separate the good guys from the villains,
Find a flag to wave, learn a proper chant.
Your words should sting like a pointed finger.’
He understood the lure of a world
Of certainty, where al...
Tuesday 17th October 2023 9:33 am
Lexicon
The language becomes narrower each day;
Our actions and our words decelerate.
Only in the aftermath of slaughter
Do we attempt to find the words for death:
Some words to tick the box and shrug it off,
To come to terms with our cheap cuts of guilt.
Their boy lies, unresponsive, while we live
To relish the chaos of adulthood.
Truth is complicated. Dumped in a hole,
Until j...
Monday 18th September 2023 8:19 am
Crossword Clue
Last night, I met somebody from Ukraine;
He told me Mykolaiv was his town.
‘Oh, I’ve heard of it,’ I said. ‘In the East.’
‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘Near Odesa.’
Embarrassed, I had to apologise:
‘I got it confused with Mariupol.’
Although, of course, I realised my gaffe,
This exchange exposed the danger of war
As big-headlines and the superficial:
‘Starts with M, four sy...
Wednesday 13th September 2023 5:23 pm
The Long Haul
They say we are in it for the long haul,
But the long haul is a poor existence.
Your options become rather limited:
Eat, sleep, work, fight, and live on subsistence.
I’ve driven lorries long haul to the West
And been to Asia on a long-haul flight,
But never put my neighbour in his grave,
Nor hid in shelters half way through the night.
Long haul relationships can b...
Saturday 9th September 2023 6:48 am
Colossus
You cannot see me,
But I can see you.
That’s how the war goes.
As you cross the road
Or jump on a bus,
I will destroy you
With minimum fuss.
But if you did spot me,
You would be amazed:
I’m no great colossus.
You’d miss me in the street,
As I have grown so small,
And, under the radar,
Hardly exist. At all.
Wednesday 6th September 2023 7:48 am
Daft as a Brush
The midnight attack got him. He swept floors
For forty years. Ordinary, no frills,
He carried on his work throughout the raids,
While cautious types like us would hunker down.
Close to retirement, he always swore
The cowards would not stop his night’s routine.
‘He’s as daft as his brush,’ some people said.
He made his choice, of course, as we made ours,
And he has paid the ...
Saturday 2nd September 2023 9:41 am
The Building
The pride of our town,
Its mortar and bricks
Now crumble to dust,
In heaps of destruction
And mollified lust.
Out there men are laughing
And punching the air;
They deal in high fives,
When hitting their mark
And ending more lives.
Tuesday 29th August 2023 7:29 am
The Youngest of the Dead
(On August 13, 2023, a 23-day old baby girl was killed by Russian shelling in the Ukrainian village of Shiroka Balka. Six other people were killed in the attack.)
There’s an old saying: ‘live for the day’.
I managed to do that. Twenty-three times.
And then – you probably know what happened.
You may ask the question: ‘am I angry?’
'For missing out on the next eighty years?'
W...
Sunday 20th August 2023 8:47 am
Soldier Boys
Here comes my son, the soldier boy;
He’ll always be my pride and joy.
I was so proud they would deploy
Someone so young, someone so young.
His face seemed hardly out of school;
Though he was kind and broke no rule,
They knew he was nobody’s fool,
For one so young, for one so young.
A picture in his uniform,
A buttoned coat to keep him warm,
He raced towards ...
Tuesday 15th August 2023 9:32 am
War Dancers
Dancers scatter shapes through fields of war:
Dancing around the stink and smell and sweat,
Dancing to a tune or to a heartbeat,
Dancing for their supper, dancing on the dead,
Dancing through the bullets and the bayonets,
Dancing on graves and above the pyres.
It once was simple: sessions at the barre,
A bit of matinée soft-shoe shuffle,
Of tip-tap or baggy-trousered ballro...
Saturday 12th August 2023 8:28 am
The Body Politic
Politics lurks everywhere we look:
Politics of dithering and backtrack,
Of scaremongers and big-boy nostalgia.
Nowhere to hide. In the US of A,
Blusterman is lying through his teeth.
Meanwhile, the same old suspects starve,
Or steal to fill their bellies or their habit,
While, next door to this, others lead their lives,
Trying honesty to round off each year’s end.
Throug...
Saturday 5th August 2023 5:00 pm
Video Link
The colonel’s hamming up the bonhomie,
The President spits bile for all to see,
The regimental parakeet is shot,
A corporal is cleaning up the lot.
Stand to attention, don’t bother thinking;
Get back to the trenches, cold and stinking.
Gleaming new tanks make the battlefield shake,
Flattening its residue in their wake.
We’ve got more weapons, let’s pick a new toy;
...Saturday 29th July 2023 8:33 am
Minefield
It has been quiet here so far;
The trick is getting through the day:
Ticking off hours, counting clouds,
Throwing pebbles into the lake.
I’m just one of the backroom boys,
I scrub up and write the labels.
It’s soldiers I feel sorry for;
Christ, there goes one, then another.
Poor bastard, sent flying towards
No-man’s land. I suppose that he’s….
That’s number five this ...
Tuesday 25th July 2023 8:30 pm
Trickle
With every new obscenity,
We grope for the familiar
When we try to summarise death:
‘A trickle’, steady or constant,
Of civilian casualties.
Strange how we choose to illustrate
The rubbing out of human life.
Our terminology betrays
A culture ruled by quantities
And drip-drip measurements of loss,
Or, as likely, by the comfort,
Of images of gurgling streams,
Inje...
Friday 7th July 2023 8:07 am
Left Field
What if we should try the left field option?
And wandered off message or ditched the script,
And shouted out loud: ‘Just stop the killing’.
To save the people, not yet dead, from those
Like themselves, but dressed in different garb.
Save the lives, save the years still to be lived,
Stop the anguish, the tragedy, the waste.
Turn force-fed anger into peace, disarm,
Roll back ...
Saturday 1st July 2023 9:10 am
Niceties
Must we respect the niceties of war,
When enemies adhere to no such code?
Civility becomes a fatal flaw
Which adds some extra kilos to our load.
Our protocols are there for all to see,
And everyone agrees we must abide
By rules which are the price for living free,
Although they’re only honoured by one side.
Our foe abuses captives and denies
Their fundamental r...
Wednesday 28th June 2023 8:31 am
Fortunes of War
Doing the weekly supermarket shop,
He saw the cashier had just the one leg.
‘Landmine?’ he asked. ‘You’ve guessed it,’ she replied.
The man behind them pointed to his patch:
‘I was at the front. They shot out my eye.’
Still, mustn’t grumble. My friend and brother died.’
The queue went quiet; the scanner beeped on.
A woman entered, carrying a child,
Apparently deceased....
Friday 23rd June 2023 6:36 am
Night Sight
The journalist asked nervously:
‘How many Russians have you shot?’
Juggling with his imprecision,
The marksman grunted ‘quite a lot.’
I suppose we should not be shocked,
Since he is fighting on our side,
But somehow you feel a shiver
When seeing how so many died.
You see them stalked like animals
By cold, nocturnal infra-red.
The night sight clicks; one pot,...
Tuesday 20th June 2023 5:55 pm
Cold Soup
It seems that everybody’s fair game now.
In the town of Dnipro the other day
Their missiles claimed a two-year-old girl’s life.
And so we still have the moral high ground,
Until such time our side does something worse.
I want to have faith, believe there’s a God,
But was a decent man nailed to the cross
To make way for this dung heap of a world,
This foul dominion of the ha...
Thursday 8th June 2023 8:15 am
Normandy Veterans at the Airport
They are old now, almost beyond age;
Pushed around, pinned into wheelchairs.
Though chaperoned, they seem unclaimed.
They hold up placards, give a wave
And do their best to summon up a grin,
Before we spirit them toward the beaches
Where, nearly eighty years ago,
They put their young lives on the line
To keep the locals and unborn safe.
We should salute and honour them,
...Monday 5th June 2023 7:31 am
Playtime
As kids, enjoying usual larks,
We fell on floors and grazed our knees,
And came a cropper climbing trees.
Slingshots and conkers tied to strings
Were weapons made from our own hands;
We fought in playgrounds and on swings.
Now we are adult and fight wars,
But our manoeuvres stay the same.
There are high stakes in our new game,
It’s true, and more expensive toys,
...Tuesday 30th May 2023 8:42 am
Days of Sorrow
We live close to the stars,
But closer by the days:
From times which have long gone
Till the dawning of tomorrow.
Consider, for one moment,
The stars and the days, piled high:
The waste,
The loss,
The pain,
The grief,
The tortured sky.
The sorrow.
Saturday 20th May 2023 9:32 pm
War Graves
I’m sure they didn’t mean to finish here.
They once were young men; they are still today.
Time has not aged them; boyish souls outlive
Their mortal frames, long since dissolved to dust.
Each pristine grave is their nobility,
A passport to well-deserved endurance.
From all around the hubs and spokes of Earth,
They came and died from homelands far away,
In Britain and the loy...
Tuesday 16th May 2023 8:50 am
Census
‘How many of you live here?’
The man with the clipboard was asking.
Numbers are not my strong point
And I get a bit tongue-tied.
I reply, in a roundabout way:
‘Well, some, here and there;
Not many now;
Fewer than there used to be.’
‘Is that the best you can do?’
He snapped, looking peeved.
I slope off, inadequate,
Fumblingly imprecise.
Turning round, I see ...
Sunday 30th April 2023 5:22 pm
War Habits
Folding up your kit,
Cleaning out your gun,
Marching side by side,
Writing home to Mum.
Lobbing a grenade,
Fingers in your ears,
Larking with your mates,
Sinking twenty beers.
Blow the bastards up,
Keep your powder dry,
Punch the freezing air
As you watch them die.
Paying off the tarts,
Clearing body parts,
Bullet in the head:
Sorry ...
Tuesday 25th April 2023 8:42 am
Victims
We think the only victims in a war
Are those with names engraved who rise no more.
But we should spare a thought for those who live,
Those damaged souls with so much more to give:
Exploits in the battle oft unspoken,
Hearts and minds decayed or simply broken.
So many of them suffer from a loss
And find it tough to put a smiling gloss
On situations which become so hard
Th...
Thursday 13th April 2023 7:52 am
Glory Days
These pictures look quite dated now,
Like all those old films that we see.
That’s you, returning on the bus,
And, picking up the kids, it’s me.
Back in the glory days of peace,
We lived together hand in glove.
Our future seemed mapped out in stone,
The present sparkled with our love.
Now that seems like another world;
Your letters from afar arrive,
Whil...
Wednesday 5th April 2023 9:53 pm
Milk Bottles
In the great tempest of eighty-seven,
Mum and Dad remembered milk bottles
Bouncing and blowing down their quiet street.
Incredibly, none of them were broken,
Though hordes of healthy trees were smashed to bits.
But soldiers do not escape so lightly:
One bullet shot is easily enough
To shatter for good their unprotected shield.
The broken glass has to be collected
And put...
Wednesday 29th March 2023 7:44 am
Pot Shots
Courtesy of lily-livered missiles
(Tactical? Strategic? Who on Earth cares?)
Ukrainians lose the rest of their lives,
While eating lunch or dinner in their flats.
My thoughts drift to twittish highland royals,
And double-barrelled toffs who hunt for stags,
Which bleed and stagger round for days on end
Before they die in bouts of howling pain.
It is all part of a continuum:
...Saturday 25th March 2023 8:54 am
Who includes diversity...
Written in March 2023: one year on.
(...sees races, eras, dates, generations,
The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together"
Walt Whitman, Kosmos)
Only fragile glass
holds the cold
night's times at bay:
each star above the beech
owning its mo...
Friday 24th March 2023 11:37 am
Circumstances
Some people wilfully tread on spiders,
But I don’t.
Some squash ladybirds for fun:
That’s not my style.
Some laugh as they crush an ant:
I can’t do that.
You can see where this is going:
Some people are just different.
They are born that way;
Or do they become like that?
They can’t all be sadists;
Sometimes it’s just circumstances.
So, could I become t...
Monday 13th March 2023 4:50 pm
Anonymity
It’s only anonymity
Which makes us go to war;
When soldiers meet up face to face
They wonder what it’s for.
They talk of friends and relatives,
About whom they all care;
Discuss the beauty of the world,
Which they delight to share.
They do not bow to nation states
Or military types,
Whose mission is to keep them down
By tapping on their stripes.
T...
Sunday 5th March 2023 9:08 am
The road to oblivion
I was not alive during World War two
Even dad was a mere lad in the blitz.
Living a stone's throw from Grimsby docks
Bombed nightly by 'The Luftwaffes Herr Fritz.'
I remember reading about the Yangtze incident,
In an old National Geographic edition
As well as the wars in Kenya and Korea
The horrors of the Indian Partition
Little more than just a toddler
Back in...
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 8:47 am
Reluctant Soldier
The sky looked weary
Pale and colourless
As were we
I laid down my rifle
and thought of what I'd told her
I'd left it in the hollow of her mind
In the place where dreams ascend
So, when the day came
they could carry
all that grief & sorrow away
and feed it to the clouds
for when they felt like crying
And on that day
Laden with the burden of
a thousand...
Friday 10th February 2023 4:35 pm
Torturer
You get the feeling he would cross the road
To not to have to give you time of day,
Though in his flowered garden, taut, he dotes
On children, bouncing them upon his knee,
And will cherish every stricken insect
Like a father cradling his newly born.
In working hours, required stiffness
Does not prevent him cracking the odd joke.
He says it’s nothing personal (it is);
It ...
Thursday 9th February 2023 9:17 am
The Words
in the end everything seemed
to be superfluous,
our whims, our worries,
our everyday words
whirling in between
the four corners of any statutory affairs
in the end everything was
so predictable like the unfolding
of any well rehearsed drama
that our words became silent
like the tired desert
after the longest day of the year
in the end everything pushed
...Tuesday 7th February 2023 4:47 am
Total War
It’s bizarre that Eurovision,
That riot of drivel and camp,
Became a combatant in war:
Builders bopped to the Ukraine song.
Politicians of every sort
Are decked out in blue and yellow.
Hollywood types, shocked in their awe,
Enlist and worship at the shrine.
Lottery winners in hard hats
View body bags through telescopes.
Pray silence for the giant screen.
The workin...
Monday 6th February 2023 9:04 am
The Finer Things
Wars are the usual bag of tricks:
Fought by the same class of suckers,
Straight out of factory or school,
Uncomplaining and scared to death.
Heads crammed with patriotic guff,
They squirm in trenches at the front
And finish dead or short of limbs.
Those who survive, when they return
To a country fit for heroes,
Are told, in no uncertain terms,
To shut up and to know t...
Tuesday 31st January 2023 8:50 am
This Is Today
It is not a fable or a fairy tale,
even a child could understand my plea
that is why I speak loudly and vehemently
I am outraged to see
how those who wield power,
supported by uniforms and boots
see us as nincompoops,
weaving narratives of a distorted history
as if nothing had been there
Their very accommodated stories
build paper monuments to their heroes o...
Thursday 12th January 2023 3:56 pm
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