Failing.

 

         For how long will humanity accept the pimps and gods of war to dominate our lives. Slaughter in the name of power, wealth and domination over others has plagued humanity for centuries and we seem to have learned nothing. The following poem could have been written yesterday but sadly it was written circa 2285-2250 BCE by the first ever named woman poet Enheduanna and still the Gods of war are "raging like thunderstorms" when will we turn in our millions against the rising wings of war, once and for all.

Image courtesy of Canadian Dimension.

Lament to the Spirit of War

by Enheduanna

loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy our land:
raging like thunderstorms,
howling like hurricanes,
screaming like tempests,
thundering, raging, ranting, drumming,
whiplashing whirlwinds!

Men falter at your approaching footsteps.

Tortured dirges scream on your lyre of despair.

Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land:
growling over the earth like thunder,
vegetation collapsing before you,
blood gushing down mountainsides.

Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance!

Dominatrix of heaven and earth!

Your ferocious fire consumes our land.
Whipping your stallion
with furious commands,
you impose our fates.
You triumph over all human rites and prayers.

Who can explain your tirade,

why you carry on so?

                                          Image courtesy of Peace & Planet News.

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Two Babes Were Born.

Two Babes Were Born.

Two babes were born one happy morn,

They came with love divine,

And a mother smiled by the River Thames,

And a mother smiled by the Rhine.

These children grew, so brave and true,

Each mother said, "How fine!"

And hearts were glad by the River Thames,

And hearts were glad by the Rhine.

But one sad day, so people say,

Their rulers tried to shine,

And one heard the call by the River Thames,

And another the call by the Rhine.

These two brave sons, the raised their guns,

As they marched in martial line,

And a mother sighed by the River Thames, 

And a mother sighed by the Rhine. 

On the battle plain where bullets rain,

These lads formed into line,

And hearts were sad by the River Thames,

And Hearts were sad by the Rhine.

They took their sight in the biter fight,

Their aim was really fine,

And a mother prayed by the River Thames,

And a mother prayed by the Rhine.

Two noble sons fell by their guns,

Their names in glory shine,

And a mother weeps by the River Thames

And a mother weeps by the Rhine.

So the Thames so fine, and the River Rhine,

Flow into the same great sea,

And they seem to say as they kiss the spray,

"If men were as wise as we."

Fred. Easton.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

What If The Angels Don't Come?

Food for thought-----

 What If The Angels Don't Come.

Large appealing eyes framed in a heart shaped head

precariously perched on fleshless body,

sitting in parched desert amidst the dead

viewed with the sound of newsreel melody:

send some food, pray the dought will end

but,    what if the angels don't come?

Demented parent in poverty's claw

torn by desperation and despair,

every nerve exposed and raw

trapped in depressio's iron snare;

we pray her fortunes turn around

but,    what if the angels don't come?

Well trained soldiers stand on hot sand

heads bowed, automatic weapons firm in hand;

now aware of horrors of the battle field

reverent prays the receive God's shield

but,    what if the angels don't come?

Another war over,

to anguish torn families bodies come home,

father, mother, sister, brother,

painfully weeping from the marrow of their bone,

we offer prayers for families of the dead

but,    what if the angels don't come?

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

TOMORROW'S WORLD -- THEIR'S OR OUR'S??

      We live in an ever changing world and though it is filled with hope and dreams, it  can also be a very depressing place at times. It is through this fog of depression that we have to continually plan and build a better world for our children and our grandchildren, we can't leave them the nightmare that we have put on the horizon.

      The following is a short extract from "We Have to Dismantle This" by Derrick Jenson.

       The unprecedented reality of the present is one of enormous sorrow and cynicism, “a great tear in the human heart”, as Richard Rodriguez put it. A time of ever-mounting everyday horrors, of which any newspaper is full, accompanies a spreading environmental apocalypse. Alienation and the more literal contaminants compete for the leading role in the deadly dialectic of life in divided, technology-ridden society. Cancer, unknown before civilization, now seems epidemic in a society increasingly barren and literally malignant.

       Soon, apparently, everyone will be using drugs; prescription and illegal becoming a relatively unimportant distinction. Attention Deficit Disorder is one example of an oppressive effort to medicalize the rampant restlessness and anxiety caused by a lifeworld ever more shrivelled and unfulfilling. The ruling order will evidently go to any lengths to deny social reality; its techno-psychiatry views human suffering as chiefly biological in nature and genetic in origin.

        New strains of disease, impervious to industrial medicine, begin to spread globally while fundamentalism (Christian, Judaic, Islamic) is also on the rise, a sign of deeply-felt misery and frustration. And here at home New Age spirituality (Adorno’s “philosophy for dunces”) and the countless varieties of “healing” therapies wear thin in their delusional pointlessness. To assert that we can be whole/enlightened/healed within the present madness amounts to endorsing the madness.

        The gap between rich and poor is widening markedly in this land of the homeless and the imprisoned. Anger rises and massive denial, cornerstone of the system’s survival, is now at least having a troubled sleep. A false world is beginning to get the amount of support it deserves: distrust of public institutions is almost total. But the social landscape seems frozen and the pain of youth is perhaps the greatest of all. It was recently announced (10/94) that the suicide rate among young men ages 15 to 19 more than doubled between 1985 and 1991. Teen suicide is the response of a growing number who evidently cannot imagine maturity in such a place as this.    

 

TOMORROW’S WORLD!!

See the fat cat’s grinning smile

as Corporate Capitalism runs amok,

Chasing profit as it goes

firing millions of ordinary folk.

Raping and polluting land after land,

starting bloody wars.

Toxic waste, sweat shop wages

and oil covered sea shores.

Where have all the flowers gone

beneath this ozone free sky?

To join the birds, to join the fox

on yonder plutonium field to die.

Mercury fish, strontium lamb

trees that never show a leaf,

radio active beaches, toxic streams

good lean BSE-antibiotic beef.

In a world of epidemic, plague and famine

it’s bottled water and chemical food.

Of course, it’s all tested on rats and mice

so you know its got to be good.

Beneath a sky that’s always black,

hurricane winds and endless drought,

its oxygen masks for the toxic air,

corporate profit’s what its all about.

ann arky's home.

LET'S MAKE THAT STAND.

    

       In 1945 the Atlee government came to power in spite of the dire warnings of the doom and disaster brigade of the privileged Churchill pack of parasites. In taking power his government set about carrying out its promises of laying the foundations for a society based on needs based services. It was not perfect, but it was a massive step to a better society for the ordinary people. Over the years it has changed and grown, modified in many ways, but the underlying structure was the same, we look after those that can't look after themselves, we give to those who are in need.

        This bunch of millionaire parasites that have cobbled together a coalition of millionaires to grasp power is a grouping of dogmatic free-marketeers and they are on a mission. That mission is to dismantle the very principles and structures of our welfare state. This is not an “on the hoof” idea, it is a vicious well planned idealogical attack on the ideas of sharing and mutual aid at the base of any civilised society, the very principles that underpin our welfare state. Everything will be supplied by the private sector. There will be no such thing as public assets, no public space.

       To do this they need the help of the public, so they set about using the tried and tested policy of scaremongering, the same tactics used by the last government in their “war-on-terror” as they chipped away at our civil liberties.

       This millionaire cabal of free-marketeers will attempt to scare you into believing that any other policy will have catastrophic effects on us all. Along with their scaremongering, they will of course come up with their chosen scapegoats. They will set about demonising the unemployed, making out that they are living a life of luxury at our expense. A life of luxury on £65 a week job seekers allowance. They will claim that it is their own fault they are unemployed, ignoring the fact that, in this country there is over 2.5 million unemployed and only 500,000 job vacancies. They will persist in this lying and smoke and mirrors illusion even as the unemployment is set to rise dramatically. 

       Their vision of society is one that everything we do and everything we want will generate profit for their shareholders. Everything, health, education, pensions, prison services and all other social services will be provided by the corporate world over which we will have no control what so ever. If it can't generate profit the price will be increased or it will be closed down, no matter the need.

       Those who cannot provide some profit for them will be left to fend for themselves or appeal to some charity or other. This is the return of the Victorian era of wealth and privilege swaggering over abject poverty, where the poor are punished for being poor.

      They can't do it without your quiet consent, if this is the world you want for you kids and grand-kids then remain silent and let them suffer. If on the other hand you want a better world for your kids and grand-kids then stop being silent, stop giving consent by your apathy. Stand up and stop being silent, they are prepared for a fight but hoping you won't bother. Let us prepare for a fight, a fight for the right to a decent life without being in bondage to the corporate world. Your kids and grand-kids are depending on you. Communicate, organise, resist.

LET’S MAKE THAT STAND.

Come rise with me

here, take my hand

it’s time my brothers

to make that stand,

we’ve bought this world

with blood and tears

shed by our kin

through countless years.

Put an end to war

it’s time for pace

man killing man

has to cease.

No more poverty

in a sea of wealth

all men equal

in a new commonwealth.

Let’s never again kneel

let’s stand up tall

claim what’s ours

justice for all.

ann arky's home.

THE PROPAGANDISTS.

THE PROPAGANDISTS.

When the hordes run with their flaming torches,

When they light the torch of freedom

Burning all injustices

Scorching all hypocrisies

Making a bonfire of poverty

Throwing dogma, patriotism and religion on the flames,

I’ll be there, among them with my box of matches.

ann arky's home.

CAN'T YOU SEE!!

CAN’T YOU SEE.

Look and listen all you people

can’t you see

you’re being sold a world of illusion

fatuous spin, hypocrisy.

Packs of perverts, pushers and pimps

our media’s daily recipe.

Ever more mobiles and mega-bytes,

a road to instant lunacy.

Keyhole views of other people’s lives

the lonely voyeur’s fantasy.

Fashion and style calling the shots

days of futile fallacy

all froth and bubble, fizz and foam

a modern human tragedy.

 

ann arky's home.

DEEP IN EVERY HEART.

DEEP IN EVERY HEART.

Deep in every heart lies the seed of humanity

Ever trying to bloom,

Entombed in doubt, choked by subterfuge,

It struggles to survive.

Look, I undress my heart for all to see.

Here stranger, gaze upon it

Perhaps then you’ll see what’s buried in your’s,

And together we can chip away this rock hard world

And fashion a softer refuge

For those not yet born.

ARE THERE CHILDREN

are there children somewhere

waiting for wounds

eager for the hiss of napalm

in their flesh –

the mutilating thump of shrapnel

do they long for amputation

and disfigurement

incinerate themselves in ovens

eagerly

are there some who try to sense

the focal points of bullets

or who sprawl on bomb grids

hopefully

do they still line up in queues

for noble deaths

i must ask:

are soul and flesh uneasy fusions

longing for the cut –

the bloody leap to ether

are all our words a shibboleth for silence –

a static crackle

to ignite the blood

and detonate the self-corroding

heart

does each man in his own way

plot a pogrom for the species

or are we all, always misled

to war

Robert Priest.

from Blue Pyramids: New and Selected Poems (ECW Press 2002)

Also: 100 poets against the war.
 
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