CURRENT TOPICS

Our Shining Aspirations!

Human endeavour—whence?

Where do our traits of greed and vanity

lead us?

The humble labour against a fog

of fiscal skulduggery,

families caught up in brutal conflicts

fed by the armaments industries

from wealthy nations,

shells and bombs rain down,

homes destroyed and shattered,

bone, flesh and sinew splattered

upon the ground, animals and vegetation,

all smashed to smithereens—

these our shining aspirations!

 

Ignorance Cries Out!

 

Actions, they say, speak

louder than words;

for certain actions

no words can convey the horror:

actions of brute force,

one person against another—

one Christian, one Moslem

caught up in mass murder—

face to face, tearing

at each other’s throats—

an eye for an eye,

an ear for an ear,

a life for a life;

and so it goes on,

the festering hatred—

man against man,

man against woman,

race against race;

blood, bone and sinew—

flesh torn to shreds,

brains trampled under foot,

humanity wiped from

the face of the Earth

in acts of purposeless,

ignorant carnage.

 

Lord, what has become of you

if these individuals are cast in your image?!

 

Out of the Sun

The Sun says it all—
the Sun is our destiny
the sun has spun the thread
that is our lifeline,
the Sun is merciless in its mercy—
non est, nisi est!

 Uniforms and the Myth II

Yesterday,
I was identified as a civilian
dressed in the clothes of a civilian.

Today,
I am identified as a soldier
dressed in the uniform of a soldier.

Tomorrow,
I am nothing—unidentifiable,
blown to bits by an adversary’s bomb.
 

(From: Pacemaker & Other Poems, 2011)