Photo: yahoo.com
“I dream of giving birth to a child asks, ‘Mother, what was war?'” Eve Merriam
How simple to hold,
to love,
feed,
encourage,
extend a branch towards hope,
how easy to cut the tree down
and offer striped pyjamas
and barbed wire,
gas,
to be disappeared,
stolen,
tortured,
bombed,
excluded,
walled,
how simple
that none flourish.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul, pvcann.com
Filed under Economics, Free Verse, life, love, philosophy, poem, politics, quote, Therapy, war
Photo: weldbham.com
“War does not determine who is right – but only who is left.” Bertrand Russell
Never have the vainglories of death
been so exposed as in the spectre of war
where truth is so relentlessly sucked dry
by the ghouls of righteous capital,
so cheaply purchased by the blood of innocents,
for those who would never near the fight
as to get their morals dirty
nor their boots,
they are the ones who would kill their own
for the sake of a few inches of sand
and forty pieces of silver.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul, pvcann.com
Photo: pixabay.com
“All war is a symptom of man’s (sic) failure as a thinking animal.” John Steinbeck
How best can you die and
at what hands might that be,
how excruciating can we make it
of bullets, shells and gas
lost in the thick of bloodied mud
and barbed protections
that betray any sense of humanity
certainly not animal because
animals know better than we,
how is it that we,
the thinking species,
slit the wrists of
every generation
and dare to call it glory,
and for what,
some politician’s ideological orgasm
where there are no gasps of ecstasy
only sobs of grief and despair
as poppies weep for the seed of youth.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul, pvcann.com
Image: provided by Patricia’s Place
Jack walked the streets at three
until a resounding boom of wheels in ruts
would send him marching ramrod home,
on fireworks night he would take cover
waiting for the shells to rain down.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Note: I observed “Jack” many times but never got to know him, in one week he never got to the shops because the trucks would sound explosive when they hit a rut or drain cover and he would stop, stand to attention, wheel about, and march home again. Shell shock/PTSD had wrecked him.
Paul, pvcann.com
Filed under Five Lines, Free Verse, life, poem, war
Photo: the guardian.co.uk
Our lives are so overfull with every possible indulgence,
it’s not that we need to choose anything in a broad sense
but we do like to finesse the provenance
of absolutely everything
in our backyard,
meanwhile,
there are bullets and bombs
that we acquiesced in our silence,
choices we made for the faceless
without consent,
buying their compliance,
while we simply carry on
the burden of our overload,
meanwhile,
did you hear about the kid that stopped the tanks?
Or the woman who shamed the soldiers in the square?
Or the students who put flowers in guns?
Do you know the provenance,
the exact place,
the temp.,
the sugar content,
the weave,
the altitude,
the who,
of the bold and the beautiful?
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul, pvcann.com
Filed under Free Verse, life, poem, war
Photo: independent.co.uk
“From age 6 to 12, I lived in seven different countries, moving from one refugee camp to another, hoping we would be wanted.” Clemantine Wamariya
Their guns,
it is always their guns,
we have no guns of our own,
Their guns are menacing,
and their words are spite and spittle,
we are suspicion incarnate,
despised and rejected we must take flight.
We are diaspora to the world,
our minds are broken down,
our hearts are ever restless for home,
but our feet seek places of hope,
and people of peace.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul, pvcann.com
Filed under Free Verse, Indigenous, life, poem, quote, war
Image courtesy of Pacific Paratrooper
I heard it before I saw it,
an ancient sound,
a single engine piper,
that was in descent to the frozen field,
then I saw it,
bright yellow,
it yawed to one side as it hit the snow,
and corrected to a fine halt.
Some old guy clambered out,
a picture of an era gone,
leather bomber jacket
straight out of 42.
My mother holding the door frame,
gasped,
they threw themselves at each other
with sobs and kisses,
the long silence punctuated with:
secret ops,
Burma,
hopelessly lost,
but I said I’d be home for Christmas,
Honey, she said,
its ten years gone,
Well, he said,
a promise is a promise.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul, pvcann.com
Photo: https://media.iwm.org.uk/ciim5/36/103/large_000000.jpg
A World War 1 trench, not quite the Hyatt, Hilton or whatever, way beyond my experience.
I Hope Someone Remembers
Trenches could not be loved,
they were open tombs,
flooded, muddied, with
congealed wire garlands and
sodden timber treads,
and the stench of the living dead all round,
their sunken eyes testimony to
the glue of resignation and guilt.
Our feet blackened for love of country,
our minds already lost
in battles of their own,
Dante’s Inferno come to life,
with the sting of gas and metallic chatter,
always the thudding, crumping, shells
that shake our bones
and reshape our vision.
Our thoughts occasionally turn to
going home, could it be?
But that thought is scotched
as machine guns lace the air,
and the referee’s whistle calls play,
all the while the unrelenting cries
of death and pain rain down.
No more to hold a hand or taste her lips,
no more to cup her breast or hold her close,
what chance of laughter, to share life’s joys?
But then I dare not think of her,
such thoughts have no place here,
they could hold me in this tomb.
The whistle resounds,
my bayonet gleams,
a macabre accessory,
one I may yet wear.
Ladders ready,
up we go,
king and country,
I hope someone remembers us.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul,
pvcann.com
Filed under Free Verse, history, life, war
Photo: norway.nordicvisitor.com
There was a time,
long before we breathed in this place,
when the sea had cleft our mountains,
and before long, we rested there,
our souls forged of its very nature.
Then the sea and the oak formed a pact,
and the long boat came to be,
together we made our way across the seas.
At home we were blacksmiths, farmers, woodsmen,
but on foreign shores we were beserkers,
fearless, bringers of terror and death
as we plundered our way into history,
all the while the fjords a fire in our souls.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul,
pvcann.com
Photo: pexels.com
Across the trench I see you readying to make a move,
the flares go up, a sure sign,
a prelude to a barrage,
the whoosh of shells and chatter of guns,
staccato, a painful beauty.
The shouting,
the frenzy,
down comes the wire,
the whites of their eyes,
that moment of surrender.
And, just as soon, comes the silence,
as before, so afterwards,
ordnance expended, tension eased.
Now we hold each other prisoner
the distance is closed,
an alliance begins,
in this tortuous war we call love,
where no one wins
and everyone loses together.
©Paul Vincent Cannon
Paul,
pvcann.com
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Athul Raj
Ri Orientarsi, alla ricerca del nostro baricentro interiore
#Livetoread
who you follow now determines what follows you in life
A digital space feat. poetry, art, nonfiction, interviews, and reviews by marginalized creators.
Book Blogger, Author, and I talk about dogs...a lot
Explore the World of Imagination & Join the Mind Revolution!
The view from here ... Or here!
Here's To Express.. :)
Ink Travel Vintage
i just opened my diary and found an array of emotions
God's word for the world
Poems, Haiku, Paintings & Photographs
A somewhat healthy obsession with photography
living in the vibe of my emotions
Travel Guides to Destinations Around the World
Home is where our story begins.
A place in my city "that if you ever come to please check out some of these finest restaurant that my city has to offer .
work as an investment manager with a crypto currency mining firm that generates good profits weekly
I read and fall in love with fictional characters
NEUTRALIZE THE FREE RADICALS
live life in livable environment
I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes. - Sara Teasdale
Living Healthier and Happier Nourishing Body and Soul
Motivation as a lifestyle
Athul Raj
Ri Orientarsi, alla ricerca del nostro baricentro interiore
#Livetoread
who you follow now determines what follows you in life
A digital space feat. poetry, art, nonfiction, interviews, and reviews by marginalized creators.
Book Blogger, Author, and I talk about dogs...a lot
Explore the World of Imagination & Join the Mind Revolution!
The view from here ... Or here!
Here's To Express.. :)
Ink Travel Vintage
i just opened my diary and found an array of emotions
God's word for the world
Poems, Haiku, Paintings & Photographs
A somewhat healthy obsession with photography
living in the vibe of my emotions
Travel Guides to Destinations Around the World
Home is where our story begins.
A place in my city "that if you ever come to please check out some of these finest restaurant that my city has to offer .
work as an investment manager with a crypto currency mining firm that generates good profits weekly
I read and fall in love with fictional characters
