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November
2006
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World War Poetry
Leo Yankevic
No Flowers, No Doves
When we entered the burning city
charred corpses greeted us.
A child's hand dangled from a scorched tree
and the twisted wreckage of a bus
mocked the stillness of the sky.
Gunner gagged, Ski scratched his head,
neither understanding why
he had to liberate the dead.
Leo Yankevich
The July Sun Over Lebanon
She hears bombs raze the nunnery.
She hears F-16s on their way
back to Israel, to reload
new bombs sent from America.
Blinding smoke burns in her eyes
and shrouds the limbs of terrorists,
boys and girls from grammar school
who in the spring first learned to count.
Leo Yankevich
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leo Yankevic
A critic, editor, poet and translator associated with
The New Formalist movement, Leo Yankevich was born into a family of Roman Catholic
Irish-Polish immigrants on October 30, 1961. He grew up and attended high school
in Farrell, PA, a small steel town in the Rust Belt of middle America. He then
studied History and Polish Literature at Alliance College, Cambridge Springs,
PA, receiving a BA in 1984. Later that year he travelled to Poland to begin
graduate study at the centuries-old Jagiellonian University in Krakow. A staunch
anti-communist, he played an active role in the dissident movement in that country,
and was arrested and beaten badly on a few occasions by the communist security
forces. After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, he decided to settle permanently
in Poland. Since that time he has lived in Gliwice (Gleiwitz), an industrial
city in Upper Silesia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Yankevich
Books by Leo Yankevich
The Language of Birds; Pygmy Forest Press, 1994
Grief's Herbs (translations
after the Polish of Stanislaw Grochowiak); The Mandrake Press, 1995
The Gnosis of Gnomes; The Mandrake Press, 1995
Epistle from The Dark; The Mandrake Press, 1996
The Golem of Gleiwitz; The Mandrake Press, 1998
'"The Unfinished Crusade"; The Mandrake Press,
2000
"The Last Silesian"; The Mandrake Press, 2005
"Metaphysics" by Leo Yankevich
"You Who Live And Hear" by Leo Yankevich*
Poems at www.Poemhunter.com
Poems by Arbab Sikandar
(Punjab Pakistan)
From 9/11 to Iraq
A man broke a windowpane
Of a very big house
In retaliation
The house of the neighbor
Of the so called culprit
Was devastated
And, then, taken over
By the owner of that big house
This is the twenty first century justice!
Arbab Sikandar Gondal
Being In Nothingness
Do you know the moments?
When life turns into nothingness
It's when a nation wages a war against another
one
It's when a child dies of hunger in Africa
And co called activists talk about animal
rights!
It's when humans kill each other
In the name of God!
Against the very spirit of their own religions!
It's when injustice and discrimination prevail
Based on skin colour and beliefs!
It's when masses are hoodwinked
By the propaganda machinery of their own
elected Masters
It's when your beloved ones set off
To an endless voyage and invincible destination
And you can not help it!
Arbab Sikandar Gondal
Copyright 2006.
Héber Vicente Bensi
Wars
The war becomes incandescent the brain,
In the
to resound of the myths and legends,
The died appears behind the mirrors...
Saying that in war all lose.
Poets bleed trying to shout,
Expelling
messages ignored,
Asking for peace and future,
But to the money the
lords point...
And the money points all to the war!
Goldsmithery,
how much is this gun?
Why it is in poor countries...
Where food the
people can't buy?
Héber Vicente Bensi Bensi
Yousaf Mukhtar
15 Minutes on the News
15 minutes on the news
devoted to a 'crisis'
of great magnitude.
We hear, watch
But do we listen, see
and will we feel
their
new found freedom
as the bombs drop around them?
as the fear surrounds
them?
as the F16s hound them?
all the bloodshed about them?
all
the killing, murder, death besieging them?
Heartlessly
we turn
away,
resume with our lives
lifelessly.
After all
we are dead
inside.
Mute/silent witnesses,
To a crime
Where innocence dies.
Every day
The fresh blood of children screams out
replacing their voices
Every day
A piece of our hearts rot away
every day
Are we deaf
to a child or a mother's cry?
Ask yourself why?
The collateral
damage of Qana
Precision targeting
Of defenceless women and children
massacred
as we, the whole of mankind
watch on
muted voices,
while the stench of the burnt flesh
of children covers us.
Why
do the children have to die?
Ask yourself why?
15 minutes on the
news
generations of destruction
Turn the channel over
we have seen
enough
Yousaf Mukhtar,
3rd year medical student
A poem sent by Marianne
Griffin
This is part of a message she sent with it on
12 November 2006:
I attach a poem I wrote a couple
of weeks ago after a chance encounter with a deer in Ashdown Forest ~ fortunately
he/she danced away to safety. My sister had
a similar experience, she tells me, up in Rushmoor Woods near Farnborough, but
the next time she went down that road she found a similar deer who had
not survived her dance through the forest.
I shall be going to the civic
Remembrance Day service at . . . Maybe we ought to read the words of Chief Seattle
on Remembrance Day too, and remember that the living planet itself is under
attack, every living thing being linked to each other ..... the water, the trees,
the plants , whole ecosystems, habitats, animals ... and us humans who are trying
to dominate Nature. All nations' God is the same except by name and we all live
on the same planet. We are all brothers and sisters, but we do not understand
each other's ways, and this is the problem.
"Go in Peace today. Love
and be loved. The Fountain of Truth will prevail for a few hours at least
today and make people wonder ..... 'why ?' "
Marianne Griffin
The Dancing Deer
Climbing up the forest road
I was suddenly plunged into utter darkness,
Dark shadows of the trees
Intersected by diagonal shafts
Of late afternoon sunlight,
One minute golden,
Rosy hued the next,
Dancing, flickering down ...
Upon a sudden leap
Before my disbelieving eyes,
A reckless bound
Into the humming trackway
That would have taken ancient travellers
Upon their country journey,
But now filled with creatures of the space age.
Into the darkness of the highway
Came a sentient creature
Carelessly cutting across the flow
Of mad machines invading his silent home.
There, but for the grace of God,
He leaped ~ high, majestic,
Right in front of me.
For a moment
His rotund fearful eye
Met mine, hearts both pounding,
Exchanging eons of thoughts,
A string of whys and hows.
And then he was gone,
Bounding to safety again in the woods,
Having said all, and I little,
But knowing Man had invaded
His home, and even dared
To kill his kind for food.
And I was so sorry.
My sorrow was for humanity
Sliding down a slippery
Path to destruction;
For life upon this beautiful planet
Which we need to
Be at peace with and respect,
And all her creatures
Like the dancing deer.
Marianne Griffin
2006
Hubert Wilson
The Wars of Kenny Marchant and George W. Bush
[Kenny Marchant is a US Congressman]
Hiding during the Vietnam War!
You are now both supporters of Iraq gore!
Perfectly content,
Others' lives to be spent!
Course America now must stay!
Real American values you both betray!
Into another hopeless morass!
Totally ignoring your own obscure Vietnam pasts!
Expect history not to be kind!
Sidestepping Vietnam service to later have America maligned!
Hubert Wilson, 1 November 06
A son, a brother, a husband, a father, a veteran
Andrew Grossman
Detainee #193993s
1.
I live in the seventh cell.
I burn in the seventh hell.
I rise at the seventh bell.
Allah free the soul.
Allah free the soul.
Free me from the jailer’s smell.
Spread the Word I cannot tell.
Allah free the soul.
Andrew Grossman, 2006
Detainee #393463c
I.
I am a tiger.
In a leap of fire
I break your limbs
One by one.
Far from anger,
Disarmed by strength,
I wait for time
To undo you.
II.
Once more I write you a letter
Regarding the sparrows you sent last year.
The birds wake me each morning,
Squawking and snapping their beaks.
I have dreams of out wheeling the rain,
But when sleep is denied me, I see the mistake.
Tightly held stillness keeps me alive.
Please consider taking back your gift.
Andrew Grossman, 2006
Detainee #225841x
Sometimes a man stands during interrogation
And walks toward the door, and keeps on walking
Into a courtyard that stands somewhere in the East.
And his family one day hears that he has died
And say blessings on his memory.
And another man, who remains inside the room,
Stays inside the torture and the terror.
His family has to go far into the world to find him
And when they do, he breaks in their arms.
His smile of stone keeps on walking.
Andrew Grossman, 2006
Detainee #096422p
What my heart will be is a tower,
And I will be right out on its rim:
Nothing else will be there, only pain
And what can’t be said, only the world.
Only one thing left in the enormous space
That will go dark and then light again,
Only one final face full of longing,
Exiled into what is always full of thirst,
Only one farthest-out face made of stone,
At peace with its own inner weight,
Which the distances, who go on ruining it,
Force on to deeper holiness.
Andrew Grossman, 2006
Ann-Marie Spittle
MEMORIES OF PAST TIMES
See me march past with the others who remember,
But not with my legs do I pound the parade pathway
Wheeled am I for I am old
But the memories do not die as my comrades did
Little Tommy Tomkins the London Cockney Sparrow
Died when his head got blown off
And I saw it roll towards me
And I froze, and then I ran
Nobbie Clark always up with the lark
Died in a mortar attack
There was nothing left to send home
So they sent back anyone’s to keep the widow’s memories
The list goes on and here am I alive
When I should be with them
A forgotten body in a Flanders field
Yet here I am
I am the record keeper of the Great War
A war to end all wars they told us
But on they rage like an unchained animal that has tasted human blood
But not mine
I ask myself why not me
And then one day an answer
"Keep these memories and pass them on
That the young may learn and remember"
So here I am being wheeled again
Past the memories of a nation
And I remember Tommy and Nobby
Because nobody else alive does
Ann-Marie Spittle
2006
TO THE FEW
Heads bent solemnly in remembrance
As the prayers of thanks are read
Those here have walked the byways of the dead
And have brought tales for the young
That death may not visit them so easily
Seas of faces that should be so much more
Line the walkway of the monarch
Who has stood with them since youth
And still stands now
As they do
Hymns lace the air
And many fly with the notes
Scenes pass before their eyes for a moment
Then are gone
As they pull themselves forward to the now
As the last post echoes through the hills
Of lands that have been torn, or part of war
And the tears roll out of the buglers mouth
And join the tracks on the faces of the few
And then silence
Silent contemplation
Then reveille
And the remembrance that life follows death
And will for all time
But not all is black this day
For happy times are shared
Of battles fought
And friends met once again
Who many thought had gone long ago
Songs of their time are re-enacted
And Churchill lives again through the actors art
And many return to those speeches
And remember their resolve in those dark days
Fluttering butterfly wings of banners
Carried by those once arthritic
Have made the final push to stand and be counted
Marching to the songs of their lands
Men stand to see them pass
Though regiments that held their names
Have gone into histories archives
Then the march to end all marches
As the warriors of old give it their all
As if their youth had revisited them
And the streets are lined with the grateful
And those who came for their own reasons
And the waves follow them
Lapping gently at their heels
Until every space is filled outside the place of Royalty
And then the beast of war awakens
And flies over as it did in the days of need
Red petals cascade upon the watchers
And a nations heart opens
Filling the air
And says thank you
Ann-Marie Spittle
2006
DO YOU KNOW?
When darkness comes
And with it the shadows of the dead
Do you know?
When battles fought fly around my head
Do you know?
When you speak with an acid tongue
And tell me I was wrong
Do you know the price we paid
In the jungles of Vietnam?
No sit there in your easy chair
And dream your dreams of comfort
Do not break your narrow view
Or try to see from my side
For you break into fears sweat
If your welfare check’s to late
Or someone knocks upon your door
When its getting to way past eight
You judge me without knowing
And that is no judge at all
For experience tells the adult
What the young do not yet know
Just give me one small ounce of feeling
As a parent to a child
And hug me as my heart is breaking
Right here deep inside
I suffered more than you can know
In that dark leafed place
Where death walked side by side with me
And often showed his face
Some days I did not know if I
Was ever coming home
And then I’m faced with acid rain
From you when I come home
I fought because I’m a soldier
And a warriors hearts beats within me
You comfort lover would not understand this
So I retreat
But know this when you finally see
Before your last breath leaves you cold
That all I wanted was your love
And not a heart of stone
Ann-Marie Spittle
2006
Jason Shelton
Soldiers Memories
2003 has been and gone but the memories are always there.
Here life still goes on just the same,
Every morning when we wake the faces are there with us,
the smells are strong,
our silent companions, our new brothers in arms.
Who do we tell?
No one,
after all, we are soldiers, aren't we?
Its 2006 and still the suffering continues:
Baghdad, Al Basrah, Al Amarah, An Nasiriyah, Al Shaibah,Safwan, Manchester,
Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham, London...
Is it all just in our heads?
If we forget who will remember
or who will care?
No one.
Jason Shelton
June 2006
www.warpoetry.co.uk
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