Poems Against War
A Journal of Poetry and Action
Poems
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10 Poems I Move Among the Dark Cubicles Clean War WMD You Have the Right to Make the World
Beautiful! While You’re Shopping, Bombs Are Dropping The Old Warrior A Dream of the Wind Pretending to be Dead What They Say Thunder Credits Why Ten Anti-War Poems?: An Afterword Biographies of Writers |
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I Move Among the Dark Cubicles
by Rosemary Klein
I move among the dark cubicles that
barely divide person from person that barely shield soul and heart
as
an unfurled umbrella from the press of rain.
Power is nothing and everything to
those without power, to those who waste in guilt and fear,
who
wander in routine.
Why would a man want to be ruled when
everything on earth is capricious and free?
To such I say all that is forgotten is
the same as all that is denied.
Those who gossip and drink at the water
cooler, who imagine themselves going to battle with lesser than they,
those whose eyes drink too long on
forms and applications, whose eyes rarely stray from the computer,
those with ear pressed to the cell
phone or fingers pressed to the palm pilot,
those who stay too long at meetings,
workshops, conferences;
to them I say the soul agitates for
renewal, for its place among all living creatures.
I do not judge one man above another.
One man’s shoulders are not higher than another man’s measure.
Whether in lockstep or alone, I guarantee each a destiny.
Clean
War
by
Patricia Wellingham-Jones
They are calling this the
cleanest war in all of military history.
--Tom Brokaw, April 2, 2003
Tell
that to the ravens
plucking
out eyes
on
the blood-packed sand
To
fathers cradling
the
last of their hopes
in
torn bodies
To
young girls swelling
with
the unwanted gifts
of
swift strong soldiers
To
mothers and wives
pulling
on veils of grief
as
they wash their dead
Inform
the children
who
wander dazed with thirst, alone
among
ruins
WMD
by
Auset
They
made weapons of mass destruction
and
tucked their children in,
careful
kisses for tender dreams.
They
made weapons of mass destruction
and
went about the daily tumble of life,
looking
for love and ducking danger,
making
rules for strangers.
They
made weapons of mass destruction
and
found enemies hidden in their fears,
pretending
that children were safe
from
evil living without borders.
When
life is so big that it swallows us whole,
the
earth remains beneath our feet
and
there is no stranger that we meet whose
step
is unfamiliar.
We
make weapons of mass destruction
and
cut up life into pieces that look foreign,
but
at night
we
tuck out children tight
as
though evil had a map.
You
Have the Right to Make the World Beautiful!
by
Alan Barysh
You
have the right to make the world beautiful!
It's
your right by birth!
You
have the right to make the world hospitable to all forms of life!
You
have the right to be creative and build a planet that corresponds with your
highest and boldest aspirations!
You
have the right to make the world beautiful
and
the right to create this beauty by any means necessary!
While
You’re Shopping, Bombs Are Dropping
by
Gregg Mosson
Saturday
sun
details
the faces
of
the marchers and the watchers.
We
are shouting “no” to normalcy.
While I’m speaking,
bombs are nearing.
And
meeting friends for dinner tonight,
I’ll
still have my life to solve:
Whom
do I love, who loves me?
While we’re breathing,
bombs are cleaving.
Solidarity
with all—
fathers,
sisters, neighbors, strangers—
is
how I live,
is
what I can give.
The
Old Warrior
by
Marcus Colasurdo
for
Philip Berrigan
When
he emerged from captivity
the people crowded around him.
They
flung their questions
like
spears over heads of wheat.
The
old warrior listened,
the lines of his face in raw books
of history.
On
the gray steps,
the voices grew louder:
they wanted to know
what
the battle was like
how
many were killed
how
the blood tasted.
The
old warrior stood unmoving;
not even whispering
though
something tectonic
jumped in his eyes.
He
may have offered a flower
but I didn't see it.
He
may have folded his arms in prayer
but I couldn't tell.
From
his tongue
only the ocean rose
And
when the questions brought down thunder,
he smiled at a child
and
climbed the grey stairs again.
A
Dream of the Wind
by
Marcus Colasurdo
When
the red dawn finally explodes
upon our land
and the
earth covering the hundred million
trembles-
A new
people will appear
wearing symbols on their cloaks.
They
will speak a language
from the lips of the caves
of copper
and they will carry their shelter on their
backs.
They
will travel by foot
and worship
the
horses that still run free.
At
night
they will gather near fires
preparing the food;
etching
blankets and belts
from what is left.
The
women will measure great distances
by charting the cross-eyed stars:
for
these will be a people
who have known imperfection.
The men
will stretch tents into drums,
thinking of new melodies:
for
these will be a people
who have known great silence.
The
children will pantomime
the sway of the trees
for
these will be a people
of whom nothing is known.
Pretending
to be Dead
by
Antler
How
many boys who loved playing army,
Who
loved pretending to be shot
tumbling
down summer hills,
Who
loved pretending to be dead
as their bestfriend checked to make
sure,
Or who
loved pretending to deliver
their
last-words soliloquy
wincing in imagined pain
or lost and dreamy,
Find
themselves years later
trapped
on the battlefield
Hearing
the voices of enemy soldiers
Searching
for corpses to mutilate
or
wounded to torture to death?
What
man remembers those idyllic
boyhood days then
As he
lies still as possible
Trying
not even to breathe,
hoping beyond hope
the enemy will pass him by,
Knowing
if he's discovered
and stuff them in his screaming mouth
And
then, before cutting off his head,
disembowl him before his eyes?
Ah,
thousands of boys and men
have
met this end,
Millions
perhaps by now,
so many
people
so many wars.
Do they
go to a special heaven
set
aside for
all who
die like this?
Restored
to the bodies they had,
The
memory erased of that insane end
to the
story of their lives?
Do they
still get a chance
to play army with joy
And
pretend to be shot
and
pretend to die?
After
they meet this end?
Do they
still get to thrill
in
pretending to be dead
after
they die?
After
this hideous inhuman end
will they laugh and wrestle
their bestfriend again?
What They Say
by
Barbara Simon
So
much to be thankful for
in
America--Good folks
folded
like handkerchiefs
into
the pocket of our national
pride.
How well our great country
churns
through the vast swell
of
world opinion. Dominance swells
our
chest. So responsible, we are for
helping
the little guy. Beleaguered countries
beg
us to help their folk
learn
how to grow a real nation,
one
where the chief
executive
would never lie. Chief
among
the virtues of this swell
American
ideal, we know we are a moral nation,
filled
with people thankful for
liberty,
freedom—democratic folk
willing
to stand up for this great country.
To
honor our country,
we
let slide pomposity, pretension, and chief
among
our cardinal sins, the folk
wisdom
that we are right: the swell
of
public debate always for
flag
waving. Our national
patriotism,
the refuge of a nation
that
smiles after bombing a country
into
submission for
weapons
it didn't have, chiefly
to
get the oil, the swell
reserves
to feed the fine folk
at
Halliburton or Bechtel, corporate folk
whose
only interest is our national
debt
they allow to grow to swell
their
coffers, raping us, the country
going
down as our chief
executive
cowboy struts for
an
image of victory, our country welcome
only
to the Fortune 500 folk, their chief
goal
to make the nation safe, or so they say.
Thunder
by
Auset
In
trying times to walk
On
the heels of the ancestors
Quietly
Always
giving thanks
Giving
thanks always
Tread
lightly
They
will hear your step
Do
not awaken the thunder
Sleeping
in their hearts
It
will rain soon enough
Why
Ten Anti-War Poems?
An Afterword by Gregg Mosson
01/15/08
The
ten poems included here are culled from Poems Against War, a journal
that began publishing in May 2003 in a limited edition at first biannually and
then annually. The small-press journal
is archived at the University of Wisconsin, Madison—special collections
department. In 2007, Poems Against
War Vol. 6: Music & Heroes become available internationally through
Wasteland Press.
Poems Against War says artists must raise
their voices to inspire change. In
mainstream literary magazines today, scant literature dares to speak about war
and other pressing social issues facing people in the 21st
century. In this way these publications
create a fiction that people can live their lives outside of cultural and
social changes, when in fact most cannot escape. Such silence endorses the status quo. However if the status quo is not tending toward peace and
justice, then it is not good enough.
In February 2003, U.S. First Lady Laura Bush
invited a number of writers to a White House conference on the topic of Emily
Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes.
Neither Hughes nor Whitman would have come to that symposium on the eve
of a war and remained silent. When it
became rumored that invited West Coast poet Sam Hamill might mention his
opposition to the then-brewing 2003 Iraq invasion, Mrs. Bush cancelled the
symposium. The U.S. went to war with
Iraq on March 19, 2003.
Hamill gave birth to a ‘Poets Against
the War’ movement. He created a Web
site allowing over 11,000 poets in a matter of months to contribute their poems
from the U.S. and around the world.
This movement exposed a swell of U.S. sentiment against the war. This
journal takes its cue from Hamill and Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman, and
especially from Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” in providing space for voices of
witness, peace, anger, and joy.
The ten poems here were
culled from the first six issues of Poems Against War.
BIOGRAPHIES
Antler is author of Selected Poems (Soft Skull Press, 2000) and Last
Words (Ballantine Books, 1986). He
has been the poet laureate of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his long poem “Factory”
is a must read. The poem here
“Pretending to be Dead” can be found in his Selected Poems.
Auset is a name derived from an ancient Egyptian god, and
is the stage name for an African-American woman who lives in Baltimore,
Maryland. This poem comes from her
chapbook, Thunder. Auset and
poet Marcus Colasurdo perform a traveling poetic 2-person show, Thunder and
Lightning.
Alan Barysh is a poet and activist whose new poetry CD is Art
Between Deliveries. He recorded it,
so he says, with his DJ Infinite Eye during breaks while on the job as a
delivery man. The CD can be found at:
myspace.com/infiniteeyemusic.
Marcus Colasurdo is a poet and teacher whose performance
company Gimmie Shelter Productions in Maryland has put on fundraising benefits
using poetry for 15 years. He has inked
Bending Zen Wavelengths, a book of poems, and Angel City Taxi, an
unpublished novel based on his days as Los Angeles taxi cab driver.
Rosemary
Klein is executive director of the
Maryland State Poetry & Literary Society, and founding editor and director
of Three Conditions Press. Her poems
have appeared widely.
Gregg
Mosson is the publisher and main editor
of Poems Against War: A Journal of Poetry and Action. He has written a book of nature poetry, Season
of Flowers and Dust (Goose River Press).
His reporting, reviews, and poetry have appeared in The Cincinnati
Review, The Baltimore Sun, Poet’s Ink, and other places. If you dare, seek more at www.greggmosson.com
Barbara
Simon’s first full-length book of poetry
is The Woman From Away (Three Conditions Press). She taught at the University of
Maryland--Baltimore County. She died
from cancer in 2007 and shall be missed.
Patricia
Wellingham-Jones has written Voices on
the Land (Rattlesnake Press) and Don't Turn Away: Poems About Breast
Cancer (PWJ Publishing). Her work
has appeared widely. She is a former
psychology researcher, and her Web site is www.wellinghamjones.com.
·
All
rights to these poems are held by the poets.
·
Feel free to reprint or distribute for educational
and non-profit purposes. For other
reasons, query.
·
This anthology was produced by Poems Against War:
A Journal of Poetry and Action
·
www.poemsagainstwar.com /
pawmagazine@yahoo.com