THE WAR WHICH IS COMING
Is not the first one. There were
Other wars before it.
When the last one came to an end
There were conquerors and conquered.
Among the conquered the common people
Starved.
Among the conquerors
The common people starved too.
(Bertolt Brecht)
In memoriam all victims of war.
I don't know Brecht's words, but they ring true in this country. In the North, they cling to an outdated ideology while their own people perish in floods and famine. In the South, old people, men and women alike, their backs bent by years of toil in the rice fields and on farms, struggle to scrape a living by collecting material for recycling.
ReplyDeleteAll the time, America plots its next holy war.
I salute you and this fine tribute, my friend.
Oh the pity of war.
ReplyDeleteI remember those men and women who did not shirk their responsibilities.
I wanted to commemorate today in some way but I knew we could rely on you. I spent most of the day traipsing round ToysRus followed by a slap-up meal at TGI Friday. What a way to waste our hard fought freedom.
ReplyDeleteI was reading Brecht's War Primer this very morning and nearly posted summat from it. Instead I went with Langston Hughes.
ReplyDeleteA good day to be mindful - well chosen.
Very well chosen. My favourite bit of war poetry comes from Tony Harrison:-
ReplyDeleteLie that you saw me and I smiled
to see the soldier hug his child.
Lie and pretend that I excuse
my bombing by B52s,
pretend I pardon and forgive
that they still do and I don't live,
Pretend I've got the imagination
to see the world beyond one nation.
That's your job, poet, to pretend
I want my foe to be my friend.
But then I can be a terrible cynic.