Category: Anti-war

Feeding Them Up On Bullets Instead

I wrote this poem last night, when I woke up at 1.30am. The featured image above, is looking up at the Geelong hills north of the town, they are called the “You Yangs”. I suppose my poem below is about, how our politicians, should look up , to see what’s coming down on their heads. This post is for the Weekly Prompt, Photo Challenge: Up  <<Click on, to view The Weekly Prompt site…..

Feeding Them Up On Bullets Instead

 

How hard must we hit the nail

On their heads

Before the white house wooden hearts

Finally count the living-dead

 

How hard does the rain have to fall

On their heads

Before the farmer’s empty buckets

Only fill via tears from the living-dead

 

How hard shall the sunshine burn

On their heads

Before the number of extinct birds

Light-up the dark gap between government heads

 

How hard do crumbling icebergs break

On their heads

Before both polar ice-caps melt

Flooding our storage silos and sheds

 

The answer my friends, rests

On their heads

Before all the starving arise from earthen beds

Crying out, stop feeding us up on bullets instead

 

Words, Between the Lines Of Age . Neil Young.  Lyrics

Someone and someone were down by the pond
Looking for something to plant in the lawn.
Out in the fields they were turning the soil
I’m sitting here hoping this water will boil
When I look through the windows and out on the road
They’re bringing me presents and saying hello.

Singing words, words between the lines of age.
Words, words between the lines of age.
If I was a junk-man selling you cars,
Washing your windows and shining your stars,
Thinking your mind was my own in a dream
What would you wonder and how would it seem?
Living in castles a bit at a time
The king started laughing and talking in rhyme.

Singing words, words between the lines of age.
Words, words between the lines of age.

Ivor Steven (c)  2019

Heavy And Hollow, The Whitehouse Door

I’m too tired to continue

Carrying this Olympus torch

The flame is not staying alight

Under my sheltering porch

All I want to do

Is watch the birds

And selfishly forget

The hungry and dying herds

My bell has become too hollow

To ring against the war

Too heavy to lift

High above the floor

Too wide to pass

Through the Whitehouse door

Too noisy to tell

Humanity the real score

Soon we’ll all board the Ark

Row away from our shores

Fly our rescue flag aft

Explore the sky with Thor

Listen to the heavens

Hear the peace-bells last encore

Proudly ring the bells that still can ring

Chiming so loud, no-one can ignore

Ivor Steven (c) 2019

A Picture Story

Every picture tells a story

I will not show the bloody war pictures

No need to add to the gruesome tale

Everybody knows the score

Our leaders know, how many were lost at war

Instead, I’ve a different photo, of a tablecloth

A wedding gift of my parents

Now my family heirloom

Aged over seventy years old

Embroidered Peacocks on fine linen

I wonder how often the tablecloth has been used

Not as many times as nuclear bombs have been fused

How many people have sat around the tablecloth and eaten

Not as many people as the war’s have maimed and beaten

Ask world politicians and know-all dictators

They’ll all know the forgotten bloody score

That’s my enduring tablecloth picture story

Same old hidden facts of hell and rancid glory

 

Ivor Steven (c)  2019

 

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall On Polar Bears

The foreigners have quietly landed

Wood from our trees has all been sanded

We’re a country without doors

Surrounded by golden shores

The openings are cast and vast

And the alien’s time is here at last

I cannot stop them, nor can you

If it be their will

Then, let it be

Join them, do not flee

We’ll all be hand in hand

To become the promised land

So let us be great again

Do not worry about the hard-rain

Do not consider the broken light

Forget about the rainstorm tonight

Who cares about Polar Bear’s with no ice

Leaders say “Enjoy now, no matter the price”

Sorry, we cannot send the politicians a banquet of flowers

All flowers are in crystal vases, within the moguls ivory towers

 

 

Ivor Steven (c)  2019

Fish-eggs And Grapes

My mind’s witnessing warring hell

It’s time to ring the bell

There is a time

When enough, is more than enough

When the price, far outweighs the costs

Counting the countless heads, is a needless sum

Moguls perched high upon ivory towers

Swinging full circle in their leather chairs

Crystal glasses full of classic red-wine

From grapes, picked by the walking dead

Fine china cups full of black caviar

From fish, caught by the floating dead

 

My mind’s witnessing bloody hell

It’s time to ring the bell

There is a time

When the suffering is enough

When the suffering is more than enough

How many heads do the Mogul’s need to roll

Human alley-pins falling into blackboard bins

Buried under centuries of desert lands

Empty hands holding onto sandy winds

The lost children, mankind’s biggest sin

Temporary tents and stretchers their living sty

And still, bullets and bombs whistle by

I Was Only 19 (A Walk in the Light Green)
Redgum
Mum and dad and Danny saw the passing out parade at Puckapunyal
It was a long march from cadets
The sixth battalion was the next to tour and it was me who drew the card
We did Canungra and Shoalwater before we left
And Townsville lined the footpaths as we marched down to the quay
This clipping from the paper shows us young and strong and clean
And there’s me in me slouch hat with me SLR and greens
God help me
I was only nineteen
From Vung Tau riding Chinooks to the dust at Nui Dat
I’d been in and out of choppers now for months
And we made our tents a home, V.B. and pinups on the lockers
And an Asian orange sunset through the scrub
And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can’t get to sleep?
And night time’s just a jungle dark and a barking M.16?
And what’s this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me
I was only nineteen
A four week operation, when each step can mean your last one on two legs
It was a war within yourself
But you wouldn’t let your mates down ’til they had you dusted off
So you closed your eyes and thought about somethin’ else
And then someone yelled out contact, and the bloke behind me swore
We hooked in there for hours, then a God almighty roar
And Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon
God help me
He was goin’ home in June
And I can still see Frankie, drinkin’ tinnies in the Grand Hotel
On a thirty-six hour rec. leave in Vung Tau
And I can still hear Frankie, lying screaming in the jungle
‘Til the morphine came and killed the bloody row
And the Anzac legends didn’t mention mud and blood and tears
And the stories that my father told me never seemed quite real
I caught some pieces in my back that I didn’t even feel
God help me
I was only nineteen
And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can’t get to sleep?
And why the Channel Seven chopper chills me to my feet?
And what’s this rash that comes and goes
Can you tell me what it means?
God help me
I was only nineteen
 

Ivor Steven (c)  2018

Against the Next War, The Next Hell

Against the Next War

Hello dear Readers, I’m presenting this important poem written by, Sarah, of Fresh Hell Poetry, for you all to read.  An absolutely outstanding piece of poetry, definitely one of the best anti-war poems I’ve ever read. 

   Poetry  

In response to CafePhilos’s call to make peace viral. A noble effort, and worth a try. Please give his post a read.

“Trying to do a slam-style poem. I really hope the audio turned out OK on this. Apologies if it’s too quiet, I’m still figuring out how to make videos.” – Fresh Hell

 

 

Don’t Feed Them

 

If I imagine them
Taking my brother away to war

I shatter.

I don’t want to lose anyone.
Especially not to something as stupid
As war.

Maybe you like the idea of war
Because you’ve confused real life with action movies.
Maybe you hate another group of people for what they have done.
I can’t convince you to forgive another’s atrocities
That is something you must grow into on your own.
But I can beg you this:

When dogs of war bark
Don’t feed them.
You will be told it is the honorable thing
To die for your country.
You will be told you have enemies abroad
Monsters in human flesh.
But the monsters are in your back yard
Baying for blood.
Don’t
feed
them.
You will be told
That if you love your family
You will abandon it
And submit yourself to the state.
Give up your mind, body, and soul
To be consumed.
Don’t feed them.
You will be called weak
You will be called subversive
You will be stamped
Kicked
Drowned
Thrown into jail
Dumped in the gutter.
Still,
don’t feed them.
They will scream about the chaos
Unleashed in the world
They will plead for your aid
They will put weeping women before you
They will show you the bodies of children
They will appeal to your humanity.
But if you join them
You become the monster.
You will rape the women
You will bomb the children
You will force them all into the machines.
Don’t feed them.
They offer you money
Insurance for your families
Early retirement.
Ask your wife how she feels
When you go abroad.
She may smile then, proud and supportive,
But when she gets the letter,
Insurance will be a cold comfort
A reminder
That her loved one was eaten alive.
Don’t feed them.
The politicians get fatter.
The generals get fatter.
Our fearless leaders
Have little to lose.
What is noble
About sacrificing yourself for these people?
Are they so wise, so just?
They have enough.
Don’t feed them.

  • Written by Sarah, of Fresh Hell.