This acrostic poem is the title for the blog too as it signifies the entire premise of my vision for the viable future we can work towards if we just decide to abandon confrontation and waste and adopt cooperation.

As a lot of my thoughts are expressed in poetry there will be many more poems added to this blog, but not to the exclusion of other writing forms.

 The following poem was written when events in Gaza were dominating concerns over peace in the Middle East.  Now it is the conflict in Syria that brings so many 'World Leaders' into a huddle - but with all the preamble we know that nothing more than rhetoric can be expected in the near future...

What price do we set on the live of women and children, the elderly and other non-combatants?  Evidently the passion for feeding conflicts with more and more weapons is of little value when aiming for peace - but shares in armament companies will benefit as they always do.

Is there a connection between the power brokers on either side and the companies who depend upon death for profits - I doubt it can ever be denied to the satisfaction of any open minded people...

Brave Men Needed

Hundreds more Dead
Thousands more bleed
What hope can we give them
When will they be freed
Where is their peace
Is there water to drink
Can they find food
What are they to think

The innocent lie in pain and in blood
Their homes bombed to mere rubble
Seen by spies up above
Their anguish will forever blight any love
Is there some answer from those who are free
People are people wherever they be
Vietnam, Korea, China, Japan or Iraq
Once more out in Gaza who can shield their backs

Who can see further than the next shell or bomb
How long until peace comes
How long
How long
No place on earth is safe for the poor
How much they all suffer
Look at what they endure
Those that send hate must take blame for all this
Such deaths fuel more anger and so violence persists

The greatest courage is to stand and shout Stop
Are there no politicians man enough for that job
Are there none that can see beyond the next vote
No voices of reason without fear of the chop
We need some real leaders with the vision to say
We can never end conflicts while we do it this way

Shame will be written in more history books
Don't ever forget those crippled children's looks
Their puzzled expressions reveal the real loss
No spin can ever justify those that do boss
The armies and fighters who inflict all these crimes
And damage the future while they corrupt more young minds

Brave men are needed to stand and be heard
To carry on with bombing is brutally absurd
No eye for an eye will come to an end
Until all sides agree that they must learn to be friends

©Rhumour
January 14th 2009

 

Wars have scarcely ever been out of the news in the 45 years since I penned my first anti-war poem during a free period in Grammar school. That was a result of my growing awareness that wars were often fought for rather dodgy reasons - and yes there are endless questions to answer about how to resolve differences when political and economic differences are seemingly insurmountable.  

But we don't go to war between towns and cities when they have differing political control and one gains commercial growth at the expense of the other. And as populations migrate and form multi-ethnic societies in more and more countries, how long will national boundaries remain 'valid'.

And here is that poem from 1968 - simple and I am told still impactive to many who read it.

 

 

WAR

 
War, war, war
What is it all for?
Does it bring happiness
Does it bring joy
It gives me much less
For I'm a soldier boy

Drafted into conflicts
With folk I've never known
Right across the planet
Some other time zone
None of us have interests
In the other's needs
We're simply hanging on until
Some bullet makes us bleed

Patch us up in the MASH
Send us home to mum
I'd rather do without the dash
Over minefields all alone
So many buddies splattered
Across the field behind
Are those that sent us over here
Really of sound mind?

©Rhumour
June 1968 

 

The death toll among people in the military has been well marked after the World Wars and civilian casualty statistics are fairly well know with regard to many wars.  But there are the seemingly forgotten deaths that also took place when many unborn children died with their mothers.  This poem is dedicated to them. 

The Unknown Child

I am the unknown child the stork didn't bring,
my mother struck down during endless bombing,
no chance had I to ever see the light of dawn,
or graduate from milk to rusks made from corn.

The web can reveal the millions that died in war,
those that were soldiers and sailors and more,
the many others who died without raising a fist,
but who counted the babies that were never kissed?

Many fathers away on battlefields never knew,
until many months later about bombs that slew,
the families they had to leave behind to be brave
and wives carried children with them to the grave...

I am the unknown child that was not born,
just one of millions who have never sworn,
never had one chance to play out in the sun,
or gaze up into the eyes of a loving mum...

©Rhumour
February 5th 2012

 

Visionary leaders such as Gandhi. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela  among others have already left their mark on the world.  How much better if we could see our children have the prospects of a united world, where mankind recognised the futility of conflicts that have already wasted millions of lives, devastated whole cities, squandered massive resources on military hardware and oil, etc. 

The erosion of national boundaries is taking place every day as more world citizens make friendships across the vast reaches of land and sea simply by using the world wide web to meet, free from the constraints of geography.  So let us decide now to act together...

 

Let's Act Together

Friends of many nations
We gather here to say
Let's act together as if
We're one big family today

For all our children's futures
Should be held in our own hands
Not bartered by some business
Or maimed by armies on our lands

This world is large but finite
We have no more room to grow
The food we need for all to eat
Must come from what we sow

And if we divert our efforts
From battles over dwindling oil
And make tractors now not missiles
Then we can make futures from our toil

Lets praise the men of peace now
Let Mandela be the mould
In which we cast our values
So our children may grow old

No rights can be the greater
Than the one to live in peace
I'm sure that all who read this
Want hostilities to cease

Far days may come the sooner
If we all hold fast and shout
Stop the deaths by slaughter
By starvation and by drought

©Rhumour
February 25th 2009