Poets respond to thoughts on War and Peace Dipping into darkness one soldier at a time —Deborah C. Strozier, “Vietnam War Memorial” They have no delusions that their words will change anything; however, they know that words have. They show up for work every day--this army of peace advocates. Poets saying what they must. It's their job to write what is in them to write--popular notions? Rarely. Might a single politician read these lines much less be persuaded by them? Perhaps. Especially if the Poet Laureate of the United States tells the truth--and Billy Collins did step forward against the war when he was in that position! It matters what you think. If you wish to have us consider your poem for nearly permanent posting here, send it in the body of an email (no attachments) and include name, city, email address if you want that shared. Include credit if it has been published. Yes, we're happy to reprint if you own copyright. To copy any of these works for any purpose you must get permission in writing from the author. Pudding House cannot provide contact information for that purpose if author didn't provide it for publication here. JENNIFER BOSVELD'S OPEN LETTER TO YOUNG PEOPLE TARGETED BY MILITARY RECRUITERS-- go to the end of this webpage. NOTE: So we don't forget--Laura Bush was to hold a White House litbash 2/12/03. Poets scared her and probably all federal departments/agencies with rumors of anti-war poems. The administration canceled the event. THAT MADE NEWS just in time for the Sunday papers! War protest readings were organized overnight for Feb. 12 all over America, some sponsored by Poets4Peace. Poet Laureate Billy Collins braved joining the peace army. Tens of thousands of American poets are writing special peace-work and posting anti-war poems on an uncountable number of websites and getting them into print journals. Here's to the power of language! It stopped a Bush event. Imagine that. If only the common sense even in uncommon poetry could stop the war, in addition to a little Whitehouse tea party. Sam Hamill of COPPER CANYON PRESS (thanks, Sam) designated Wednesday, February 12, that year as a day of Poetry Against the War. Sam compiled an anthology of poetry that was presented to the White House. "Poetry and the American Voice" was the White House symposium planned for February 12. Hamill was invited, but so reviled by the administration's war preparations he organized a protest instead. The White House does not want to face the reality that there is opposition to their pro-war attitudes. Alas, we know there is HUGE opposition. Let them hear yours. An ongoing outpouring would mean something as well. Post your poem on www.poetsagainstthewar.org. Assume the deadline was yesterday and do it anyway. Send Pudding House your poem for PeaceLines right here, send Sam your poem, show up against war. . . and for peace. Don't stop having peace readings. The town idiot was elected for four more insane years. Our Poets4Peace readings are more important than ever. We have half a country to educate. A peaceful journey to peace is the way that makes sense. The peaceful way is the most patriotic effort. --Jennifer Bosveld. .... by Mary Rossi David it was the fourth of july in the month of march and the stars hid behind the blue, white, and red explosions that diverted the skies over baghdad. flashing sun fires deceitfully brilliant in the early morning night erased the moon that could no longer tolerate gazing down on this war's carnage. but could it truly be named a war when only one side was assaulting, or was it actually a semblance to conceal another persisting crusade led by just another antichrist? it was the twenty-first of march in the month of july and the cycle of life did not renew, but instead slunk fearfully back into the cold cessation of winter. the obstructing air transformed into smoke as it kissed the grassland sand, and in this distant blurred horizon it could not breathe in the crusade's havoc. but could it truly be named a crusade when the other side had often assailed, or was it actually a constant to expose another continuing war led by yet another antichrist? it was the fourth of july in the month of march on the first day of spring and as the diplomatic efforts somehow evolved into shrouded ultimatums, the celebrants laughter must have transmuted to the shattering screams of terror that could no longer be heard amid this awing fireworks display. it was simultaneously the month of july and the month of march in baghdad; an observance of life's wars and a commemoration of death's crusades. even god had no idea where it was safe for him to be. Mary Rossi David Grove City, Ohio Old Soldiers Fading Away by John J. Dunphy flophouse pinned to a sleeping man's sweater his Purple Heart VA hospital Agent Orange victim's tattoos shrinking with his arms whiskey-dampened finger draws a map of Nam on the bar popping corn - he flashes back to Nam and small-arms fire Veterans Day parade the World War II vet's wheelchair pushed by his Nam son amidst roses the Nam scrapbook beside his coffin VFW Post at a back table Nam vet plays solitaire (originally published in Frogpond Issue XXIV:2) Belated Casualty: A Haibun by John J. Dunphy After years of battling depression, alcoholism and drug addiction, a Vietnam veteran committed suicide in the late 1970s. Long estranged from his family, the vet's ashes were kept by a fellow Nam vet. About ten years after his friend's death, this vet journeyed to Washington to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - "The Wall" - where the names of the more than 58,000 Americans who were killed during the war are inscribed on black granite. While the suicide's name would never be added to The Wall, he could still join his fallen comrades. blowing across names of war dead a suicide's ashes (originally published in the Fall 2000 issue of Modern Haiku) Battlefield Memento: A Haibun by John J. Dunphy I recently learned of a Vietnam veteran whose battalion was overrun during a battle in the Ia Drang Valley. His company suffered a casualty rate of over 90 percent during a 24-hour period of hand-to-hand fighting. In the early 1990s this man and a few other Ia Drang veterans returned to Vietnam and walked that long-ago battlefield. He wanted to find some memento of the conflict, such as shrapnel or a shell casing, to leave beside the panel of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - "The Wall" - that contains the names of his comrades killed during this battle. But he found no war relics. Over the years nature had effaced all traces of that horrendous engagement. Beautiful flowers now bloomed where once men had died. Still, this veteran wanted some memento to lay at The Wall panel listing his fallen comrades. next to names of war dead pressed flowers from their last battlefield (originally published in the Fall 2000 issue of Modern Haiku) Snow in Jerusalem If ever there was a sign of something, an indicator like blood-red rings around a moonrise (said to be a Biblical billboard, according to Ezekiel) or a string of low-sky radiances from a U.F.O. moving at the speed of very slow Canada geese in plain sight and clearly visible above a Wal-Mart, one of those God’s-winked-at-us defining moments in which it’s easy to think the cosmos benign— if ever the perfectly elastic nature of History suggested that ambient pathos of the provincial and called for a point-and-shoot Kodak to frame what about us is always in danger of melting away, it’s in a foot of snow on the ground in Jerusalem & little Jews and Palestinians sharing the building of igloos by the dicotyledonous pomegranate: a desert having put on its winter-best shroud. The noise these make while playing is so loud what you see is like television with the sound off or turned down: a silent film for peace. They say this only happens once every 100 years or so. Roy Bentley Another Word for War Der Krieg wird nicht mehr erklart, sondern fortgesetzt. --Ingeborg Bachmann To ordinary people, the ones who read romance novels for sex between the lines, who share adrenaline with a favourite team to feel a touchdown’s rush, who press their foreheads on mats facing east until they are stepping stones across the river to eternity, who laugh at political cartoons printed opposite the letters they write to the editor, collateral damage is what they become when hostilities resume. To ordinary people, who live in apartments with paper thin walls, in bungalows with brick walls, or in camps with no walls at all, they are targets in a theatre of operations. To ordinary people, who are neither handsome nor wise, neither rich nor unloved, neither faithful nor dishonest, a casualty is a death. To people who don’t vote and to those who are forced to there is another word to describe breakdown in diplomacy: a word embracing conflagration, national defense, foreign involvement, pre-emptive strike, liberation, slaughter; a word that is medicine to be taken on a sugar cube, an ear-plug word that blocks the sound of explosions, a word modified from its old Norman father, werre, which meant confusion or strife, a word slipping easily between countries, factions, that is spoken with gentility applied to military operations as science, art, or profession. It rests on the scale opposite peace, security, and harmony. The word has a brother named terrorism, whose purpose is to use violence to intimidate and subjugate. Its sons populate a wasteland. Its neighbors are ground, air, guerrilla, and atomic, the ones whose crimes will be forgiven by survivors but we prefer it as a euphemism for destruction. It is no longer declared but continued. We stopped counting with the Thirty Years word, played red against white in England’s word of the Roses, outlived the Spanish-American word, the Franco-Prussian word, World word One, the Spanish Civil word which rehearsed for World word Two which chilled into the Cold word, the Korean word, the Vietnam word and the Gulf word as the word moved like a spy into our everyday vocabularies. We took it into our homes, befriended it as the word on drugs, the word on poverty, the word on homelessness, the word that ticks in the newscast countdown to the next time we say it: In the beginning was the word. David Chorlton WAR ON THOUGHT Demonize demonize Demonize the enemy Then you can kill him Guiltlessly Demonize demonize Each sees the devil In the enemy's eyes, No one looks into His own New York City Afghanistan Kashmir India Pakistan The West Bank Jerusalem Bosnia Iraq Iran Kill the innocent, create more hate Leave a legacy that has no end For mindless revenge breeds mindless revenge Breeds revenge breeds revenge breeds revenge. Suzanne Rosenblatt Copyright © 2002 Suzanne Rosenblatt | |||||||||||
 The Capitol has lost its conscience... and we’re back on the street at the January 18, 2003 antiwar rally. |
In the coldest October on record Ten inches of snow melt to slush and seep through unwaxed boots. Yellow leaves flutter down, dance on frozen lakes. Life ends too soon. We were not prepared. We were not prepared for this early winter, Birds vanished from the northern sky, voices stilled. Far from the road there is no sound but the crunch of our own footsteps On shattered branches where leaves cling in crystal tombs. The angel of death has icy wings. Smoke rises from charred stalks of young box elders. The spirits rise, grow pale; smoke gives way to mist, then fog. Feet numb, we stand on hollowed ground, on mud and ashes. This death diminishes us. What’s lost is lost. Forever. I light the shiva candle and question God. 11/02 Lyn Miller Lachmann Copyright © 2002 by Lyn Miller Lachmann | ||||||||||
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Carrying the banner for Paul Wellstone at the January 18, 2003 antiwar rally, Washington, DC. Not Now Don’t let us go to war now When the field has just been planted When the poem’s half-begun When the rich beef stew has found the fire When the child-seed bursts to life-form When his fledgling play is ripe for stage When the song is near-recorded When the dance is almost learned When the swing-set is at last put up In green backyards where children run When horizons meet our oceans When full eyes can meet dear faces When the dreaming comes. Don’t let us go to war now When youth is on the brink of shining When orchids can be grown at home When prism facets break the colors brilliantly Don’t let us go to war. Don’t let us fight ourselves now Don’t give us cause to wail now Don’t listen to our screechings that are searing other lands Reach the screechings. Burst the prismed places of our unknowing groanings Into human colors That will take our breath away By beauty Not by death. Give us back our breathing For the dancing And the song For the swing-set And the youth And for all horizons,far and near Here and there. While the growing orchids grace us And the fields are firm with seedlings And we are finished poems, Feeding on the taste of readied stew And savoring our stock again This fleeting human stock. Marianne Hieb, RSM Copyright © Marianne Hieb, March 2003 Collingswood,NJ hiebm@lourdesnet.org Peace Movement Someone must be listening to them, the ones who tell us, this is what democracy looks like. Three hundred people stand with signs beside the Frog Bridge in Willimantic, Connecticut. They are the ones who show us what democracy looks like. I’m looking around for people I recognize in Willimantic, Connecticut. They are reading poems from an anti-war anthology. I’m looking around for people I recognize as I check the Poets Against the War database filled with poems, an anti-war anthology, a list that grows by leaps and bounds each day. As I check the Poets Against the War database, my friend is censured for sending an email to a list that grows by leaps and bounds each day, about a protest singer whose guitar will stop Bush in his tracks. My friend is censured for sending an email. Even so, words fly everywhere from poets, from protest singers. Trying to stop Bush in his tracks, women in black silently haunt the White House. Words fly everywhere from poets, testifying the United States of America has gone mad, haunted by the women in black. The White House plans a devastating campaign, an extremely large bang. The United States of America has gone mad, will be as disruptive as it needs to be, so we have no choice but to plan a devastating campaign, an extremely large bang. Now we are hundreds of thousands of people strong. Poets, be as disruptive as you need to be. We have no choice but to speak, to build, to disarm, to march, hundreds of thousands of people, maybe stronger than an army. We are the first to speak, to build, to disarm, to march, but we will not be the last. Every click of the mouse builds up our army. We are the first major anti-war movement to precede a war. We will not be the last. Every click of the mouse says not in our name. Our songs pray for resolution. In the first major anti-war movement preceding the war, we teach our children to draw peace signs. Not in their names, we say, and pray for resolution. Three hundred people stand with signs beside the Frog Bridge to teach our children. Draw peace signs. Someone must be listening to us. Laura Wasko Manchester, CT lwasko@hotmail.com The Illusion of Comfort (after news of Tel Aviv, 9/21/2002*) i am clipping my toe nails in the hallway. wrapped in terry cloth, bending to soothe a third-toe left foot signal of neglect, comfort is the hollow clap of metal on metal tip, dead flesh yielding to the pressed precise curved edge until the cat’s nose taps my splayed damp toes. he is happy i survived again the watery doom of that white wall behind the bathroom door; he rumbles soft regard for the presence of my morning feet. i worry for him. he does not know at least this once a month i’ve grown to hate him as i do. an eerie, dred-locked knot of fur rides his back like another form of life. the residue of his gray existence drifts into corners, lies on the sofa, screams commands from that foul box that echoes on each level of my house. still he rumbles soft regard. i have tired of his psychology, his hypnotic sway, his straight-out people-herding need. he does not know each day i think him dead, given away, or I push away the urge to throw him to the fence to see if he will be impaled. such is the slaughter of the innocents that it comes in when they least suspect from sources of which they’ve not learned to be wary, tears them from their comfort in the sudden clap of metal on mortar, metal on metal, metal upon flesh, hollow and still for a moment then sending dead flesh flying off in tiny shards swept up later with the rubble, or picked from random surfaces by what seem care-filled hands. last night’s news an echo still sounding in my ear and all this old house asleep, this cat nudges me, and for a moment his eyes are the gray and open eyes of passenger twenty-three on a crowded bus in Tel Aviv moments before her eyes took on the look of morning news. my hands have become the hands of sleight and sacrifice, choosing their instruments with steady caution. the amplified nick-neet, nick-neet of my heart’s rush pours past my ears, bent low to hover over such a simple task claims its familiar rhythm from this toll filled space. i retrieve the hard, rough slivers of my own flesh from this sea of blue, put the clippers away, give the cat his drink and learn to breathe again. Rose Smith *On 9/20/2002, a suicide bomber boarded a city bus and within a few minutes detonated his device, killing 5 people and wounding nearly 50. It was the third suicidal attack on Israelis since the anniversary of 9/11. Child - when you pick up your room today it is time to box the little toy soldiers put them in the attic where they may gather the ashes of centuries Child - you may not give them away to your friends who have had enough toy soldiers of their own you may not wrap them to send abroad as gifts nor receive them as presents Child - look at your collection rusted and old you no longer need them your world has pain guns won’t clear away let ashen years rest salute the free and brave Wynne McClure Sunset-February, 2003 The leafless trees On the far shore Of my frozen lake Stand in rows like Soldiers on review. I think of My Father’s blind eye And Mathew’s Mustard gas Wheeze.. I remember a guitar Player-Painter of pictures Whose deferment Ran out- He left me That June with only a Bouquet of promises That never bloomed And finally fell lifeless From their stems. .. Again- the trees Near my lake Cast long dark Shadows Toward the East. Linda Leedy Schneider Grand Rapids, Michigan The Drowning Of A Nation It started out like, pre-maiden voyage, hype, the expectations of those awaiting passage, before a weak chin broke off, before ice in the veins before doors and water rushing. All the kings horseman and the king himself, ignoring both bishops, ignoring all players on all sides across the board. The bow breaks. We are left with nothing. We stand and sing this last stanza one last time. Waiting for the warmth of narcosis to thaw the chill. Lawrence Carradini Black and White Films Are Better I wish I had never seen red. I would give up ripe tomatoes and wine. I wish I had never seen blue. I would give up the migration of indigo buntings. I wish I had never seen green. I would give up my tree and cilantro. I wish I had never seen yellow. I would give up canary wings, lemon-butter. I wish I had been born into a colorless world, of no difference. No blood. No bluebabies. No gangrene. For no more bruises, I would give up summer grapes, milk with blackberries, and, along the fence, my purple irises. Bonnie Roberts bonnierpoet@yahoo.com previously published in The Sampler, Alabama State Poetry Society and To Hide in the Light Elk River Review Press, Athens, Alabama. Teshuvah* If weeping were the thing could tender us We would by now be soft and clear. If rage could bring us round, this storm would hold us north, and keep us sure. With every fresh assault our futile words run rivers in familiar groove. But drying salt is hard. Too sharp and strong the crystal's fixed. We do not move. Where only love will serve, the sun in flow, our need is greatest, to be kind. One way we have not set our faces. We turn toward Light, and turning, shine. *The turning to God in Hasidic teaching. Jeanne Lohmann Late Flight Winds Hatching -- Affirmation of Life against War -- Into the far yellow wind a hooked-neck white crane flies, full of knowing, both wings drawing into themselves all opposing winds. Joy is in the beating wing and terror and the loin pains of discovery. The crane has a great nest of sticks four eggs in each one sounds the pecking of a hatching. When the winds join in her flight the shells will break in a communion of wings. Far beneath her a grey tide rises sounding moon sounding ocean. The cypress tree grows still green in a shallow inland lake. Her mate flies in from the otherside he has been keeping the nest warm but flew out to meet her--- she was not gone long---caught a fish to share. The wind has broken into a school of sky fish feeding them distances that will nourish the flight of their young. Moon will soon rise a look of shining will open . . . the mother crane's feathered sight. Will Inman Tucson Arizona Copyright © 2002 by Will Inman The Illumined Skull sits on the side of the dark hill, an egg settled into a black nest. Fragments of mortar-fire cinder away flesh, lighting it up like a dollhouse. In night-vision, Mom steps out of the jaw onto a few teeth sprinkled like an unfinished walk. Dishtowel aproned across her full middle, she watches dirt clods tumble by in the yard. Tiny fires flare up, as if holy days surround the neighborhood. A torn boot idles beside the house. Sis sits in one eye socket writing. There’s no house left on the block like this one— garden scattered with green bones that won’t stop growing. Ron Houchin FEEL THE FABRIC (today on Good Morning, America) On a blue platform sprinkled with giant snowflakes in Times Square, the Rockettes, white-clad, are dancing, seeming to clasp each other, kicking in metronome unison, only not quite together, touching lightly— they call it feeling the fabric— so that if one goes down, she goes down alone. Preparations for New Year’s Eve: mailboxes gone, manhole covers secured, sharpshooters on the rooftops, and a thousand plain-clothes detectives joining the crowd, while in the square the Rockettes are dancing still, like snowflakes falling, each alone. Ellin Carter Columbus, Ohio Pacification From a wall at the U.N., Guernica accuses, makes Colin Powell squirm. The embarrassing images are censored, mangled torsos of war victims, covered over by drapes. We send vengeful assassins, terrorists wrapped in American flags. The television gives us bright explosions, manufactured spin, talking Washington heads. We drop leaflets, launch our burrowing bombs. Picasso’s gored horse screams to the blood spattered clouds. An Iraqi child holds her protruding intestines, feels the shock and awe of incredible pain. American stock markets rally; share values rise. The torn face of a splintered baby stares into space. Jennifer Lagier Copyright © 2003 by Jennifer Lagier Surreal Soul in the USA O northern-most America, your cash-colored queen of Liberty sings – the magnet school of the world – Your conscience is black, your character white, your intuition red as deep bone marrow bursts, your sleep is the color of soil and smells like thawing midwinter fields of oil, your fantasy is latino, your pornographers puritan, your factories paint the skies chemical rust, your cropfields strain topsoil down seeping oceans of dust, your Greenhouse means Melt-down Spring in Appalachia, The Fifth Season of our nightmares and daywars, melting lingos / fast-track limbos, faster limos / plastic lingams and foamy yonis. Land of fore and ‘aft fathers’ with paternities chased when anyone bothers. Land of the NY Minute where just-arrived pilgrims die in the brazen world’s wilding moments– Land of exiles and expatriates and the lap of usury, the clap of luxury, the flag of dangled manners, the rights of animals– while trees have standing– Land of bluejeans and bioengineering, promoter of cowboys (invented in South America) playgrounds of celluloid and Hollywood’s wet mouth– Surreal is the gone night gentle as criss-cross missile flights nuke peoples away procreating on their ‘fast’ days at Ashrams with Yogis in Manias and in cars– above all, CARS the driving force behind oil wars and dead youths throttling ahead– to evac out of one soul into the next Surreal America, the northern-most New World with Golden Gates shaking till Saint Francis tips over the edge/margin/absence into a pacific abyss– Mother of all Fads: hula hoops, tax loops, yoyos, entrepreneurs– father of ‘all the prints that fix the news,’ harbor haven and Asylum, images that are graven, and resting place to Whitman “the Walt” with his “barbaric yawp” and even greater Gestalts: more than woman or man, a seer is a land– the river mud in Twain’s Mississippi veins, Melville’s sea of the Great White Whale chaste by the blood of human blindness. Even in peaces will oil reigns reclaim soil? Will slicked seas, islands and sounds gain from the sacred honors of hours– or wars’ tantrums of geo-cide recreate lives painstaking eons made? Will forged wars make us free when the brave dig graves in sterile dirt?... Our rage runs over the limits of courage– unthinking and unconscious of how the world-body’s soul prowls like a tigress of spirit– the justice of natural laws can’t bear it. Jeffrey Lee THE FACE I wonder what war would do to the face of the world, more war, I mean, more and more. I wonder whose face the world is (I believe I know whose body it is), but I touch the face of the world in the dark as if I were playing “Meet the Giant” with my Uncle Bim, knew he was soon to take one finger, say here’s the giant’s eye, then plunge it into the half of an orange he was holding. I feel around in the dark on the face of the world; I wonder what war would do to the mouth, whether more teeth will go, whether the mouth will be raw with new wounds, or dry as never before with sores of the old fears. Michael Dennis Browne Originally published on threecandles.org and now also in the poetsagainstthewar.org collection. Giovanna I. On a Yugoslavian farm, she was born at dawn. The oxen puffed and steamed nearby. Crying, she stretched into the straw. She was fifth behind four brothers. At nine, she asked them how babies were born. They laughed roughly as they slaughtered the dinner hens and milked the cow. At nineteen, as she served breakfast, Mussolini paraded by and the boys ran in the road to see who could touch his passing car. At twenty-nine, she bailed hay, milked the cow, and plowed the land by hand, wondering when the Italian Navy would allow her husband a leave. She wondered and cried as she knelt in the dirt. At thirty-nine, she was torn from his shirt as stoic soldiers in green suits took the men to labor camps. She carried grain fifty miles to feed her sons. One morning, while eating shoe leather in broth, she turned forty-nine, and the bombs exploded around her like broken hearts. When her boys weren't witnessing executions behind thin shrubbery, she read to them. II. In a misty port, she arrived at dawn. Crying, she undertook America. In an Italian deli in West New York, she was five thousand miles behind her brothers. At fifty-nine, she asked God, "How come?" She laughed roughly as she swatted the mice out of her crammed pantry and sent her grandchildren to overstock it more. At sixty-nine, as she served breakfast, her faithful transistor radio buzzed Carter's pleas about the gas while the boys ran in the street among parked cars. One morning, while eating anisette toast with black coffee, she turned seventy-nine, and when her sons weren't hiding from their torments, they read to her. III. At eighty-nine, she lay dying in a New Jersey hospital. I arrived at dawn. Crying, she stretched her arm towards mine. She said, on a Yugoslavian farm, she was fifth behind four brothers - names and faces she no longer knew. She asked me how babies were born. I looked at her, drew in a defiant breath, and laughed roughly to make her feel at home. Lorraine Stanchich Northern New Jersey FAMILY DINNER "So, what do you think about the war?" I ask my step-granddaughter-in-law, aged 25, as the waiter hands her two-year-old a second soft drink. "Oh, we have to go in, get in quickly, get out quickly," she says, looking as pleased as if her red-haired daughter had just been named Miss Toddler America. "What I don't understand is, they say Saddam Hussein might set fire to his own oil fields, and kill a lot of people." Before my husband can talk about the blood and dead bodies he saw in Korea, her father-in-law, my stepson-in-law, aged 50, says, "War is not an appropriate topic for dinner." We eat our chimichangas, talk about baby clothes, pass the green-eyed two-year-old from adult to adult, as I try to think what I should have said: "So, censorship begins at home?" "Ok, you've said what you think about the war, now let's hear what someone else thinks?" "Obscenity you?" When we divvy up the bill, he speaks again, "Why not look at it this way, it won't be all bad. My company stands to make a lot of money. We made a killing in the last gulf war, putting out oil fires in Kuwait." The sweet-faced two-year-old finishes a piece of cheesecake. Am I only the one who sees the gods of war rolling the dice for her grave? Susan Hazen-Hammond Northern New Mexico susanhazen@cybermesa.com HOUR-GLASS mft. U.S. govt. Dec. 2002 Hourglass (hour.glass) n. 1. An instrument that consists of two glass chambers with a narrow neck through which a fixed amount of sand passes from the one (upper) Š to the other (lower) in a fixed amount of time; usually, an hour that leaves mere atmosphere above a mound of sand below like the site of a dig in the desert as though you could uncover the history of a Middle Eastern city in the space of an hour with a shovel, delve into the lives of a different people, and not remember the mass of upturned faces before the blast of wind-blown sand with metal fragments. 2. A contraption that is more of a trap or contrivance than the invention of a political system in which the parties in opposition are like the flipped sides of the same coin: why now / why not Š another war with Iraq on the horizon that holds no lofty notion of our mission in the sand as though you could lower the flag that waves over an open grave, and not remember a soul who went through the hole to nowhereŠ. Warren Slesinger Beaufort, SC slesin@islc.net Artifacts Back side of the busted globe, bricks and boards on streets of the armistice, and my father stuffed his canvas duffle with wounded artifacts of fresh-dead war. He was alive without an explanation. He lugged all this junk home, so the last of the Nazis lived in our attic till their leather memories cracked on the temperate extremes of my father’s reprieve. Kneeling under the pitch of rafters he fingered those rusted guns, helmets, knives pointing at how deeply he doubted it all. The black accidental hole in the flyer’s cap told me everything he didn’t say. But in those iron helmets and the ignorance of my father’s image on me, border for border I stormed the neighbor’s lawn. In the boulevard infantry my brothers fell, their eight, nine years of reckless elbows and knees ridiculously naked, ridiculously still. Then one day the swastika inked on the adjustable headband erased itself in the perspiration around my ears. My father warned us not to shoot each other’s eyes out with sharp sticks we shouldered till he took them all away. I wished by my father’s troubled face I hadn’t lost his swastika. He confiscated the helmets too. They hung themselves in our garage, their gloomy thoughts beyond our grasp. The Lugers my mother ruined because her stomach turned on the pick-pick of the firing pin, Sunday afternoon from the lawn chairs where my father tutored us at the trigger— safety on, safety off—always the business-end opposite our lives. My mother forced him to surrender the clip. I suspected she tipped off the sheriff who drove away with both Tommy guns under protective custody. The Italian carbine survived, hunting deer no sooner than the ponds froze each October, until an identical weapon murdered the President on our TV. And sure enough the flyer’s cap flapped again against my oldest brother’s chin, launching a fetish for power, his motorbike roaring like a guided missile, the iron cross bombing every crowd who looked his way. Lowell Jaeger WAR POND So now the frogs of war are croaking from their pond of fire and all the haters of peace, emboldened croak back they have only two notes: Kill Take Kill Take Barbara LaMorticella SLEEPLESS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT SINGING SOLO nothing about this is "for democracy" there is nothing democratic about the slaughter that will occur both sides, the disappearance of the innocent the cracking and gouging of our Earth Mother nothing about this is "from people who love peace" those people are writing poems, those people are carrying banners those people are true patriots those people did not vote for this President Our leader and theirs, have gone certifiably crazy, far from the heart of the people far from the conversations at our bus stops and under lanterns at our winter trailer parks on get-away weekends If this were a movie your mother shouldn't let you watch it If this were a song it would choke you like dry chicken If this were a dance it would jitterbug you to the graveyard If this were a religion well so much for religion When I was a child I couldn't type but I typed "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country" over and over and over and over and over again, my friend...and there we were and here we are at "the age not just eve of destruction" so I say "Now is the time for all good women and men to come to the aid of their world" over and over and over and over and over again, my friend...we are also at the age of a possible peace it is not impossible to replace replace those arms with sheet music come sit with me by the river before it runs red teach me your best song of human kindness and I will teach you mine. Once we sing together we can do anything. Jennifer Bosveld Columbus Ohio CHU YUAN IN EXILE Having been banished for speaking truthfully to the emperor, Chu Yuan retreated to the south where, by the Xiang River, he made orchid garlands and wrote poems petitioning for his exile’s end. Hoping finally to withdraw further from the world, Chu drowned himself. “O Soul, come back to idleness and peace.” --Chu Yuan, c. 200 BC “History is the sum total of all the things they aren’t telling us.” --Don DeLillo, c. 2000 AD Macaques roll on logs in laughter at Peking-- pigeons roost royally. The narcissus’ fall arrives too soon: nectar plucked by hungry monkeys. One stately pine stands evergreen with power-- atop a rocky ledge. On the pine orchid blossoms pungent and bold-- against night a true black. Flowers have no scents for kings who will not see-- the blindness of mirrors. And Chu Yuan wonders if an orchid thunders when it drops from the pine. Rugged banks of Xiang support the lonely pine growing twisted and gnarled. Orchid weather weaves a necklace of the pine-- jewels for eagles’ eyes. Anonymity for gibbons on perfumed arms sheltering of pine. Barred from sweet ladders macaques climb no higher-- low tails in slush and mud. Midst snowy bamboo pine towers but tires in tangles with tempests. And Chu Yuan wonders if the palace ponders a life without orchids. The Xiang drinks winter’s end-- torrents pass the pine; dark tears among the thaw. And Chu Yuan wonders if the pine thunders with a river to the sea. Plum blossoms find peace from lingering hoarfrost where one pine idle stood. James Penha Indonesia jpenha@yahoo.com Previously published in Lynx. RESHAPING THE WORLD after Judyth Hill I believe in peace. Because regime change begins at home and Sadaam Hussein springs from the same Source that I do. Because being able to fill your gas tank never justifies killing people and terrorism cannot be contained by battering Baghdad. Because war is not good for children and other living things. Because peace eliminates bloodshed and lowers high blood pressure. Because hatred cannot survive in an atmosphere of peace. I believe in peace. Because it is better to feed enemies than to kill or maim them. Because in truth there are no enemies, only brothers and sisters from other neighborhoods and cultures with differing views. Because violence solves nothing and betrays the Love that we are. Because “the end is inherent in the means” and “the world will change when we do.” Because Gandhi and Martin Luther King were right: we must be the change we want to see in the world and we do have a dream. I believe in peace. It’s time and we must affirm and support it. We must speak up, speak out, visualize peace, join Patriots and Poets for Peace, sign petitions, call the president and congressmen, write checks, send e-mails, march. We must pray and pray and continue praying. Because we are all both dark side and Light, but again and yet again we can choose a better way. We can choose to be part Mother Theresa, part Mahatma Gandhi, Some of Oprah, Jimmy Carter, and Dr. Phil. A bit of Moses, Mother Mary, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Confucius and Buddha. I believe in peace. Because war is born of us and them, and acts of separation and peace is born of joining and Oneness. Because lovers of peace are patriots, visionaries, committed, compassionate, and courageous. Because often it requires more courage to stand for peace than it does to join a headlong race toward war. Because a handshake is better than an attack any day. Because war turns the world into a fiery hell while peace creates serenity and heaven on earth. Because peace permits us to focus on healing the planet and serving its diverse inhabitants, which is to say Our Very Self. I believe in Peace. I believe in Love. Because beneath it all, that is what we are. Jane Elsdon 2/11/03 Quotidian Poem for 10/7/01 When I heard the bombing had begun I drove down to Keene and bought a 3x magnifying glass, a sketch book & drawing pencils. Then, I went out behind the apartments & snapped off seed pods of weeds I could not name & a couple of brittle leaves. I saved the afternoon by studying edges of petals, seeds, the marvelous veins & sketching them. On the page, I wrote: unknown weeds 10/7/01, found in the patch between Applewood and the Historical Museum; on the day we began bombing. Then I made a pot of soup out of black-eyed peas and a ham bone I'd frozen from Easter. I threw in onions, garlic, parsley, cumin & a couple of tomatoes-- whatever made sense. Enough for an army. And ate some (while I watched balls of fire flashing above Kabul) and also some figs which were delicious. Patricia Fargnoli Walpole, NH Previously published previously in Diner. THE DIVINE WIND human nature being what it is the military arsenal being what it has become questions arise backed into the same desperate corner would a Napoleonic paperhanger commit suicide these days? or apocalypse? pushed to the brink do you think a godless dirty-Commie would have surrendered unconditionally to a Capitalist pig? or vice versa? the fact is an atheist might be less inclined to blow up the "here and now" than those among us who believe in the "sweet by-and-by" there is no defense against a Kamikaze fundamentalist willing to die flying prophecy down the smokestack of human existence even so the heavyweights pose and bristle confident as battleships while non-believers on both sides are ordered to get their thinking straight "An eye for an eye!" the zealot shouts "Pluck it out!" and never mind that the whole world goes blind Ric Masten SUNINK PRESENTATIONS 37931 Palo Colorado Rd, Carmel, CA 93923 Tel: (831) 625-0588 ric.masten@earthlink.net Web-site: www.sun-ink.com/ The ghost of morning travels in disguise, looking over the world like an Angel searching for blood left on door posts . . . It shrugs before knocking-- stopping long enough to see if men have forgotten . . . Then, it takes them brilliantly into itself. into the sky that's the sound of broken glass, of bells drowning of gunshots ringing in the long distance. Life becomes the rush of blood in ears-- the echo curdling, smelling like brackish water, like something man makes without feeling, or naming, but wanting out of game. M.J. Iuppa Imagine a Land where on the money faces of dead presidents are replaced with yin/yang symbols, where water comes from a mountain and children learn in meadows, where people ride horses instead of cars, everyone has time for the river, and history books refer to an age long ago of TV madness and a war that killed millions of us when Texas oilmen attempted to trade human blood for dinosaur blood. Scott Starbuck At The County Legislature Meeting Old men in suits behind oak desks with brass railings whisper and yawn while antiwar grandmothers speak, applaud the young football team for another winning season, eager to send them to war, if the President asks, to kill children in Iraq, eager to slash county budgets for other mothers’ daughters’ daycare, other fathers’ sons’ job corps, because Washington’s business is not their business, money for bombs comes from the Capitol, and there’s not enough cash for poor people’s health, because the football boys are not their sons, and their mothers hide unseen behind the masks of the grandmothers. Louise Bennett Rochester, NY louisebb@netacc.net Guns Again we pass that field green artillery piece squatting by the Legion Post on Chelten Avenue, its ugly little pointed snout ranged against my daughter's school. "Did you ever use a gun like that?" my daughter asks, and I say, "No, but others did. I used a smaller gun. A rifle." She knows I've been to war. "That's dumb," she says, and I say, "Yes," and nod because it was, and nod again because she doesn't know. How do you tell a four-year-old what steel can do to flesh? How vivid do you dare to get? How explain a world where men kill other men deliberately and call it love of country? Just eighteen, I killed a ten-year-old. I didn't know. he spins across the marketplace all shattered chest, all eyes and arms. Do I tell her that? Not yet, though one day I will have no choice except to tell her or to send her into the world wide-eyed and ignorant. The boy spins across the years till he lands in a heap in another war in another place where yet another generation is rudely about to discover what their fathers never told them. W.D. Ehrhart Beautiful Wreckage: New & Selected Poems Adastra Press, 1999 wdehrhart@worldnet.att.net War Scars Nights in China when I was nine, escaping Japanese bombs, Dad led with flashlight to the basement. Holding my plastic doll under my raincoat, I followed my younger sister with our leashed dachshund. Mother carried baby Martin. We sat on the edge of our cots. Heard the constant hum of planes-- sometimes a siren.— On the news - a nine-year old, small, wiry, holds a thermos under one arm, a copper kettle in the other. He has a gap-toothed grin. His family flees Kabul at night for fear of planes. I know what’s behind that grin. When he pours water from the kettle--does it hold the grit of sand? Does it cling to his hair, creep into his pants? – We both feel it dig into the raw soles of our feet - Fear stays –stays – stays Dorothy B. Anderson Walpole NH, dorle@cheshire.net The Bush of Rue Last night, as we were getting ready to bomb Iraq, snow came to cover the azaleas. I got up humming "The Bush of Rue," and looked it up: "an aromatic Eurasian plant having evergreen leaves that yield an arid, volatile oil formerly used in medicine." Some jets took off from nearly where Macbeth murdered Duncan, and in Scottish folk songs lovers often kill themselves and lie beneath it. And it was that kind of night, where chimneys topple and horses eat each other. Storms came separately across the sky, ghosts gliding through a great dark hall, each blurred spirit groaning and weeping only for itself. William Greenway Cincinnati Poetry Review WillGreenway@aol.com An Early Winter Eleven days before an election in which he had taken the lead, Senator Paul Wellstone, an uncompromising voice for peace and justice, died in a plane crash in northern Minnesota along with his wife, his daughter, and five others. His campaign never recovered. In the coldest October on record Ten inches of snow melt to slush and seep through unwaxed boots. Yellow leaves flutter down, dance on frozen lakes. Life ends too soon. We were not prepared. We were not prepared for this early winter, Birds vanished from the northern sky, voices stilled. Far from the road there is no sound but the crunch of our own footsteps On shattered branches where leaves cling in crystal tombs. The angel of death has icy wings. Smoke rises from charred stalks of young box elders. The spirits rise, grow pale; smoke gives way to mist, then fog. Feet numb, we stand on hollowed ground, on mud and ashes. This death diminishes us. What’s lost is lost. Forever. I light the shiva candle and question God. 11/02 Lyn Miller-Lachmann Ballston Lake, NY br> mcreview@aol.com GULF WAR AND CHILD: A CURSE He is sleeping, his fingers all curled, his belly pooled open, his legs gathered, still in their bent blossom victory. I couldn't speak of "war" (though we all do), if I were still the woman who gave birth to this soft-footed one: his empty hand, his calling heart, that border of new clues. May the hard birth our two heartbeats unfurled for two nights that lasted as long as this war make all sands rage, until the mouth of war drops its cup, this bleeding gift we poured. Annie Finch Oxford Ohio The Seed Is the Light of the Earth for Muriel Rukeyser, October, 1981 In the absence of light we maintain our eyes cannot see. We believe our pupils dilate to a maximum degree and no more. We are certain our bodies do not glow with the cold phosphorescence of the bog, of water, unfathomed, under pressure, our own or beyond our making. We assure ourselves we are exonerated because we cannot float through the night graceful with inherent sonar. We think anatomy keeps us from the forest. I tell you here, in this dark, this indistinct country, comes our shaped and fleshed evolution. That step on the unlit path stretches us, and those who may come after. With each hesitant journey we open, blazing beacon fires, flashing lanterns from high, distant hills. Dark surrounds us. We are paradox. We carry our own light and move in love through the dark, as the seed loves the earth enclosing it. Christina Pacosz Looking for Home: Women Writing About Exile Milkweed Editions, 1990. Amicus Humani Generis In Cleveland a father rises at 5:00am, kisses his son. On Edisto Island a shrimper, his black face in the Carolina sun, mindloving his grandson. In Baghdad a mother suckles her daughter. David C. Hetzler Zen Mountain Monastery Anne Waldman fast talking woman in black and white zebra print stalking holy grounds in high heels making us stalk it with her following the monks’ bald-headed cleavage. her red hair swept to one side rendering her a wind-blown tulip with exploding petals-- an up-right stem leaves still thick and green amber bracelets clicking gold scarves blousing moving through the hilly pines past the limestone dragon toward the white river noise pens sprinkling ink on dandelion buds pens sprinkling ink near the robin shitting on a rock our feet arcing a mandala in the soft grass as we renter the temple twisting the brass cricket doorknob, pulling open the ponderous cedar door-- kneeling together on soft brown pillows in the candlelit Zendo thinking if only all our forays into the world could be so intensely energetic-- so benign--with our only weapon a pen. Carol Morris Copyright © 2003 Carol Morris silkrhino@aol.com Abjuring Political Poetry Some men will shoot an infant in the face. There, that's a start--near pentameter, even. Has the world been bettered yet, or your mood? The only mirror of horror is itself. Art's a game when it thinks it shows the world in actuality; art's a savior when it stalks the world as art: stone as stone, paint as paint, words as the music of words. Here's a joke we children laughed at once: "What's the difference between a truckload of bowling balls and one of dead babies? You can't unload the balls with a pitchfork." It's okay to laugh--that shows you sense the awfulness. Imagine the hearer who did not get the joke: No poem could reach him. No horror. No world. Stephen Corey '88: A Journal of Poetry War Haiku g raze scat ered f ire flow er of no blood t rants m ea t read c ave o br eath s lept dirt s tic king face hole ,flies dream race d ants w hat i s no w (things ? John M. Bennett Columbus, OH Wounded Gladiator Unconscious in the photo Snipped from History: Frieze of what snipers left, Opera in the street, and, Somewhere, West Side, which, the spirit, still At it, sings Before the war in warrior, Before the circumstance As allegory----- Pocketbook, briefcase, Shopping bag as shield Nearby the yet beating torso, The breath dreaming Of old radiators, how the heat Was coppery percussion in pipes, The vents steaming comfort To anoint ways of beginning? Tea too eased the music up, The flesh of senses getting ready To greet the errands of moments, Their intimacy infinite and still felt Now amid the sirens, The raids of air And the great hush After the falling Mead Albany, NY Before Iraq Before Iraq, Mesopotamia. The Land Between The Rivers does not change. Richer than empire, the silt of ages blinks only for Tigris, for Euphrates. Before Iraq the Babylonians, Assyrians, the Mongols, Turks, Circassians, the Kurds were watching for the pale touch of the moon to call the rivers to the waiting fields, watching words take shape in clay that earth could speak and people understand. Mesopotamia, oilmongers scramble now to cover your deep eyes, insist you have no face. Until they coin the latest goad to slaughter, Bluebellied Devil, Yellow Peril, Gook, Iraq will do: four letters, less than death. For me, Mesopotamia, the lie is late. In my Manhattan, USA, in grammar school, we learned that Chevrolets, George Washington and Marilyn Monroe all sprang from your sweet cradle. Anthony Bernini HISTORY LESSON It was some time ago when we were prepared to bomb whoever asked as a favor now our vengeance is based in the bank and money generals our desires what with the scarcity of incorrectness bordering on fanaticism but anyway some time ago when we were prepared we did something about whatever was asked if only a brisk reply or a cup of tea brewed on the vantage point overlooking the overwhelmed occasionally rescuing a few to populate our abundance of victims it cultivated our taste for indulgence and taught us to invade without invitation a tactic we currently favor what happened last time being beside the point Michael Rattee Copyright © 2003 by Michael Rattee Memorial Day When my boy comes back from school on this day of our war dead, he will watch some TV and shoot baskets on the neighbor's court next door, and before I get the grill started, my wife on her way home from kinder teaching, I'll think of those who didn't want to die but did, by bullet or bayonet, land mine or torpedo, friendly fire or common unattended disease. I turned from a war nearly thirty years ago, objecting by conscience to the killing of other men at someone's bid, debarking in Norfolk and leaving an ensign's stripes in a box. I grieve for those who stayed on and died, or live among us with their limping gaits and psychic scars, their grown sons and daughters marking this day in their private recollections. But I do not regret my choice, and the dead of that war should be standing in back yards across America, fixing food for their children and grandchildren, telling tales of a life they were destined to never live, the napalm smoke turning the grilled steaks poisonous and the shrubs ablaze with a fact that no poem can alter. Chip Dameron first appeared in The Mesquite Review WHILE TYRONE, RAUL & RASHID ARE RECRUITED BY LIEUTENANT WAVRA Under the draft, conscripts added no value, no advantage, really, to the United States Armed Services --Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld It's a simple calculation jotted on the desk pad between the phone con- versations about cocktail hour and the poodle's appointment at the vet. With a gold-plated pen, div- ide 50,000 troops by 200 offensives then multiply an average of 80 releases which means ll crates but the catalog offers a cut rate for l2 which ought to be ample for the initial maneuver so he tells Lucy when she puts in the order for gas masks and berets to order 16,000 body bags at the same time Shoshauna Shy ShaunShy@netscape.net Transformation Peace One morning he wakes— realizes he has the gift of peace a look a smile a nod of appreciation— He grasps that it takes more courage to look a soldier in the eye place a flower in the barrel of his rifle than it does to shoot him. Lawrence Jaffe Los Angeles, California Cease-Fire In Sarajevo, the air seemed immensely blue, even at night. Shells no longer channeled the sky, and children played at hide-and-seek from dawn to dark among the crosses. Snow began to melt in the market. There were flowers for sale, staining the tables and pavement crimson, blood of earth returned to blossom, martyrs crying out anew in the language of fragrance, "Peace, peace." Paul J. Willis Santa Barbara, CA willis@westmont.edu Rattles and Rivers She rattled on and on about how her husband just didn't have the problems other Vietnam veterans have had. Her husband's eyes were turned away from her and the more she talked the more his eyes moistened. It took everything he had to keep them from becoming rivers. Charles Kesler 2508 Ron Baker Dr., Dallas, Texas 75227-8848 charleskesler@sbcglobal.net published in Available Light Writer's Garret Poets Workshop of Dallas, Texas. Peace Lines Lost The sea unscrolls silver sentences, the sand strewn with words, war an off shore wind. David Swanger California How Do I Feel? Imagine one of those copters in the desert, its blades sharp knives, thin as razors, extended beyond measure, beyond all logic (so rare these days), extended, for thousands of miles, rotating steadily, slicing the air, buildings, trees, slicing every living and nonliving substance they hit; animals, plants, minerals. I’m being chopped as I stand, I’m being chopped as I lie awake in my bed, I’m being chopped as I sit in my chair, and the chair with me. Aware of my fragile state, I move slowly, allowing the cuts to heal, afraid that when I shake, or even shudder, my body will desintegrate into living samples, CAT-scan illustrations, discs with oval outlines of organs and the precise circle of my spine; finally, the slices of my head; all substance created to feel, to coordinate, to move, to love, to tell the truth. Joachim Frank joachim91240@aol.com Albany, New York PEACE MARCHERS AT THE VIETNAM MEMORIAL Who would have thought on the cold December in 1969 when we met, my boots & I, that we'd be here in Washington, on my birthday, marching against still another war? We did not think then we would stand here, older now, more worn, creased, grey showing at the fray among other peace marchers who leave their signs on the lawn to stand before this litany of stone 58,000 points of light etched into the blackness & now gone out, not even a flicker unless you count those here now, those who remember, who tell their children Vietnam, Cambodia, Kent State, Jackson State who hug each other, who cry, who lean against the wall, find names we have not forgotten, some never even known, in the worn sole of memory. When we low-crawled through that night assault exercise we did not imagine this pilgrimage along the dusty stones of the Mall in still another grim age like when those on the Wall died-- it just goes on & on, from a jungle of politics to a desert of values Kuwait, Tel Aviv, Baghdad, Khafji. Who would have thought when I applied those acres of black polish I would be here to say "No" again like that birthday when I sat in the latrine and cried for loneliness, I don't want to have to do this, I want to go home & celebrate my birthday. We came here to wage war on War Vermont, Albany, Boston, Toledo to the Wall, to weep, to stare, to murmur, hushed as if the dead were here as indeed they are, in us, in this great crowd that even all of them could be lost in. Who would have thought, who would have thought -- at least we, my boots & I, can still march & when they're gone, I'll buy boots & boots for my children, & keep on marching. Dan Wilcox Albany, New York wilcox23@juno.com A Flash; August 6, 1945 Though my parents danced around our apartment with a joy I had never seen until that day, though my oldest brother threw his box of tin soldiers out the fourth floor window, for good, to crash on the street below, though my mother tossed her crisp blue, red cross volunteer uniform in a pile of dirty laundry and even though a lady on the fifth floor threw a bolt of fuscia florist ribbon out her window in celebration, that unrolled like a flash of river before my mother’s eyes, and she gathered it in chanting "for your hair, for your hair," exhilarated with getting something for free, I knew something was not right. When my father lifted me to his shoulders as we ran down the four flights of stairs to join the parade of thousands below honking horns, strewing confetti, drinking and swearing I knew nothing was free because I had taken a candy bar once and got quite a licking, knew a war could not be over just like that after four years of army green parades, marching clack clack and gun maneuvers slap slap, knew somebody hurt somewhere because I heard they could "take that!" I knew what that meant. And inside me came a well I could not reach. "What’s got into her?" mother asked. "She won’t even wear those ribbons!" Soon after, we moved to the suburbs and I played war with myself, me born on Pearl Harbor Day, trying to make something come out right, throw a weight from me that took years and years, the writing of many poems to understand war is never one person’s fault, peace not one person’s job. Perie Longo Published in The Poetry of Peace (Santa Barbara, Capra Press, 2002) Permission given to print on "PeaceLines" by Perie Longo JENNIFER BOSVELD'S OPEN LETTER TO YOUNG PEOPLE TARGETED BY MILITARY RECRUITERS A Few Good Men and boys on the way to men-- Those of you who have teenage and coming-of-age boys in your families or among your friends, I hope, will pass my opinion along to them. Even if you don't agree with me. For the sake of fairness for all sides of an argument,for the sake of justice, and toward what is life-affirming, I beg this. It is so difficult for a boy (or a young man) to say no to what is probably the largest amount of money he's seen to date. I've read that the U.S. government is giving about $16,000 upfront money to kids during high school recuitment if they sign up for the military. A young person hasn't lived long enough to understand how little money that is, actually, and how quickly it is gone through. This war regime would try to buy souls with it. I don't believe in a devil but if one existed he'd be doing a dance. $16,000 cheap slavery for doing the devil's bidding. The recruiters make all kinds of promises about the military, especially that it supposedly gives soldiers great training for a career after their stint is over. Many of those carrots on sticks aren't so much promises (if you look for the small print) as they are assumptions or possibilities or even policies that end up changing before discharge. Too large a percentage of our soldiers (men and women) die (thousands in Iraq alone) or are horribly wounded (many thousands), and even more come home with debilitating mental illness because of what they saw and were forced to contribute to. Others are hardened beyond a humaness and some return unrecognizable to their families and friends. Much of that is due to not being able to reconcile their own role in the killing and what they're finally able to put together in their minds as the reason for being "over there" in the first place. What they appear to be offered (at a young age) for supporting war though is very seductive. Goodness, it would buy a car! Many would argue that at least World War II had good reasons for U.S. involvement. Those soldiers received benefits from the G.I. Bill--housing assistance, low interest loans, and a college education most significantly. But today's soldiers, instead, get mistreatment and improper medical attention and no home-buyer benefits or splendid education. All they get is brain-washing and in today's corporate hell, no job to return to. On behalf of a befuddled nation, I apologize that we are not making Enlist for Peace as attractive an option. I beg young people to not fall prey to those trying to kidnap them from their hometowns and schools where they should be persuing a continued education. That education holds promise for learning (at least from a handful of teachers) how dangerous and off-point the war mentality is. I wholly admire any young person who THINKS more deeply than the propoganda aimed toward him. (I use the masculine pronoun for efficiency and because it is mostly men/boys being targeted.) That is an independent, wise, and informed kid who doesn't fall into that trap. A "kid" thinking beyond his years. The military goes after "kids" BECAUSE they are still impressionable and easily persuaded with macho, money, and peer pressure. The "kids" who figure this out are wise. Especially when what they really would love to do is get away from home, see the world, get out on their own. That so-called benefit does them more harm than good, spiritually and mentally. And often physically and professionally as well. Enlist in Peace. The benefits are greater, longer lasting. You're more likely to come home with your soul and lose fewer limbs. The spiritual, emotional, and social profit and loss statement is unquestionably in the black. You are on the side of right. Your comrads are caring. The world will more highly respect you. American society: radio, television, the military representatives, the president and other politicians, some churches, some of the corporate world and some of the establishment is a powerful enemy of my point of view. Will you give a few moments to the hopes of this unfunded and from the heart pleading? I hope you agree that we must get out there and recruit for Peace and nonviolence. Young people thinking about the military could rethink that decision and spend their wonderful energy working for peace. I only wish I were more articulate and eloquent on the subject. Though we don't currently have a draft, it is a good idea for any young person with a peacefilled conscience, to align with a community of believers who can vouch for his anti-war deeply-held beliefs so that he CAN claim Conscienctious Objector status. The Unitarian Universalists, the last I knew, had such documents to support this decision. Contact your local UU Church office or the UU Association in Boston to inquire. Many other denominations provide this support as well, especially the Quakers (Friends) and Church of the Brethren come to mind. Jennifer Bosveld a representative for Poets4Peace American Poets Opposed to Executions just a citizen LAUNCHED 1/31/03 |
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