Lies of War.

     For centuries we have lived in a war ravished world, a world where states preach war as noble, and dying for such noble events is a sacrifice that enhances the human spirit. Though the truth is well known to those who have been there and fought the battles, and the millions of civilians that have perished needlessly in savage brutality, the state still persists in this lie, this illusion, that to die for your country is a noble and honourable sacrifice. Patriotism is usually the banner under which war is given the stamp of legitimacy

      Against the lies and deceptions of the state to sanitise and ennoble war there have been an army of poets, and others, who told the truth and said it like it is, state murder, pointless savagery and bloodshed in the name of the wealthy, powerful and privileged.

        Among them my favourite probably is Siegfried Sassoon, however, this poem that captures the horror of war in one incident of the first world war by Wilfred Owen, probably stands out as a most graphic description of the horrors of the first world war. Sadly these horrors have grown in savagery as wars have moved with the technological advances in killing techniques.

DOLCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double. like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-keed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our back

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! - An ecstacy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a manin fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning,

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some deserate glory,

The old lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori. 

        "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" meaning: "Sweet and beautiful is to die for the fatherland" from a verse of an ode by Horatio.

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Collateral Damage.

       I wrote this way back in 2001 at the start of the Afghan illegal invasion, it could equally apply to those other countries like Iraq, Libya, Syria and the rest of the world where imperialism has demanded that war is the only game in town.

FOREIGN POLICY.

Listless eyes, lifeless face

motionless body with hanging limbs

carried by a mother fleeing

foreign policy’s vicious whims.

No toys, no laughter

no playing in the sun,

a short pitiful life;

an Afghan child, 2001.

No plans, no choices

no hope by any name,

collateral damage

in the big players game.

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"A Bundle Of Bloody Rags."

     War is state terrorism inflicted on people in another country, war is the expansion of imperialism, and the defence of the power of the imperialists. In this insane capitalist system, war is also a massive creator of profit for a conglomeration of corporate interests. War is never in the interests of the ordinary people.

"A Bundle of Bloody Rags"

But twenty summer suns had past since his first breath

was drawn,

An upright, clean, and manly boy, with hope and vigour

born

Afresh each day, and in whose eyes the light of

knowledge shone---

But now a torn and bleeding thing it was I looked

upon

As he in fearful torment lay beneath a ruined bridge,,

Where he had crawled on palsied knees that morn at

Vimy Ridge.

I saw him clutch the air and fall, I heard his awful shout,

A jagged piece of riven shell had torn his entrails out;

I knelt and whispered in his ear at that accursed place,

And painfully he turned his head and stared into my face;

His eyes were eyes of hunted brutes, his mouth had

gnawed the sand,

And at his ghastly wound in pain he clawed with frenzied

hand.

Although I knew his day of hope had changed to hopeless

night,

I said, "Cheer up, old comrade, we will patch you up

all-right. 

Come, let me get you out of this"--He looked with

frightened eye,

And murmered, "Jim, don't touch me. Christ! O,

Christ, why don't i die?

Jim, Jim---you've got a bayonet there----if you have pity

too,

Then send me west, old Jimmy, pal-----for God's sake,

Jimmy do"

Then a madness came upon him----it was madness that I 

knew----

For he cursed the one he loved the most, as madmen

always do,

I listened, for I loved him, though my body burned with 

shame,

When he with one despairing shriek pronounced his

mother's name;

I say with shame I listened, for I knew the boy of old,

And the love of kin was graven deep upon his heart of gold,

But now with hatred in his voice he screamed, "No dying

kiss

for you, you fiend in human form who shaped my soul 

for this;

Who fed my growing body in your lust-empoisoned 

womb,

And wove my mind with crooked lies upon a twisted

loom;

Who sent me here with honeyed words to slaughter or to

maim,

That you in empty pride might boast one hero in the 

game,

"Heroes! God! more like are we the spawn of hellish

hags,

"Heroes! Piles of broken bones and heaps of bloody

rags.

Your handiwork, your devil's deed, for this you gave me 

birth,

Your contributio to the flames of this foul hell called

Earth----

If you could see this---- this----

thing---once---once---held---by----you----in----pride---

If----you----could----Oh! my God!----the----pain!"----- with

one mad scream he died.

I heard the rattle in his throat, and saw the yellow froth

Of death creep o'er his pallid lips, and bubble as in 

wrath;

I wiped it off, and gentle closed each glazed wide-open

eye,

Then shook my fist in fierce revolt unto the callous sky,

And hurled damnation through the reek of the blood-

stricken sod

Unto the grinning ape that man has deignated God.

Oh! May I never live to watch another comrade die;

The bloody foam upon his mouth, the wild and staring

eye;

For never, if I live to be a hundred years or more,

Shall I forget that ghastly sight upon the field of war---

the gaping wound, the tortured look, and what to me 

was worse,

The hate demonical of that dying madman's curse.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I hear it still with horror,though indeed I allways knew

That he had cursed when most he loved, as madmen

always do.

John S. Clarke.  

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To Slaughter The Image Of God.

       As a life long atheist, I'm always troubled by those who believe in a God, creator of all things, and then go out wearing a uniform and kill their God's creation. To me it seems a total contradiction of all they believe in. However, I also believe that people who base their lives on a foundation of irrationality, will go on to do irrational things.

      I came across this poem while reading an old copy of Guy Aldred's The Word, Volume iv, No.7 February 1943, on The Sparrow's Nest site, and decided to put it on the blog, aimed at those who somehow, can tie together, their love of God, and the need to kill his creation.

I slaughtered a man, a brother,

    In the wild, wild fight at Mons.

I see yet his eyes of horror,

    I hear yet his cries and groans.

We met on the edge of the trenches,

    Where murder, in crimson, rode.

When swish went my blade to his stomach.

   I'd slaughtered the Image of God.

We'd never in anger quarrelled.

     We never had met before.

But someone had dreamt of conquest,

     and we had to buy it with gore.

Perhaps he'd a wife and children,

    Through whose hopes and dreams he strode,

With the pride of a king in his empire,

     An heroic Image of God.

And I asked myself the question,

     As I saw in his glazing eyes:

“Am I my brothers keeper?”

      Till the sod I trod on cries:

“You made his wife a widow,

       Made desolate her abode,

Your thrust made his children orphans,

      You slaughtered the Image of God.”

The cold, cold stars keep blinking,

      And the winds make moaning sighs.

Men worship me as hero, and laud me to the skies.

     But I keep on thinking dully, till my heart gets like a clod,

Of the thrust I made in the trenches

    That slaughtered the Image of God.

James C. Welsh.

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When Workers Kill Workers.

    On most occasions, war, in our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, is portrayed as something heroic, with our side standing tall on the moral high ground, and the enemy crawling from the sewers with mean and nasty tactics. How else could they keep recruiting fresh young blood. We can be thankful for that band of heroes the poets, who experience war in all its brutality and record it, as viewed through the eyes of a human being, seeing the destruction and death of another human being.

    One such poet was the Gaelic poet George Campbell Hay, 1915-1984, born in Elderslie and brought up in Kintyre. Due to his pacifist values, for more than a year during WWII, he had tried to avoid conscription. Faced with prison, he opted for non-violent service in the army. George was sent to North Africa and given the job as night watchman. The events of the night May 7th. 1943 traumatised him, and he was never the same again. The event he witnessed was the allied saturation bombing of the German occupied  town of Bizerta.  

What is their name tonight,
the poor streets where every window spews
its flame and smoke,
its sparks and screaming of its inmates,
while house upon house is rent
and collapses in a gust of smoke?
And who tonight are beseeching
Death to come quickly in all their tongues,
or are struggling among stones and beams,
crying in frenzy for help, and are not heard?
Who to-night is paying
the old accustomed tax of common blood?

    Of course we  have to ask ourselves, why in Gaza and many, many more places on this planet, can these words still be applied.

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Aftermath.

         Of all the war poets, my favourite is Siegfried Sassoon, Born, 8 September, 1886, died 1 September, 1967.

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War.

     From the mouths of babes, a poem written by my then 11 year old grandson. 

War.

War is a bullet in someone's chest.

War smells like gunpowder.

War tastes like sour lemon.

War sounds like people screaming and crying.

War feels like a cold hand.

War looks like a broken picture of a family on the floor.

War lives in a box of bullets.

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