Ukraine (Remove filter)
Cheeky Chap
Never mind the wounded,
Never mind the dead;
Shake hands with the cheeky chap
And pat his shiny head.
Never mind the blood
That’s dripping from his hands;
Kneel right down and grovel
In front of where he stands.
The cheeky chap is on a roll;
The BRICs are dancing to his tune.
A warrant waits for his arrest,
But might as well be on the moon:
For t...
Thursday 24th October 2024 7:12 am
God
At every corner of the world I turn,
I come across the stink and shape of death
And dodge the battered buildings to keep safe.
Yet still I hear the noisy men of war
Talk euphemistically of grades and gain,
Assuring us that all they want is peace.
Sad to relate, that treasured bird has flown;
From this time on, our God is on his own.
Saturday 12th October 2024 9:12 am
Langue de Bois
In the language of communiqués, we say:
‘We will do whatever it takes’,
But in Kyiv, Kharkiv or Kramatorsk,
As nighttime falls and warheads once again
Wend their way between wide-open cracks,
The heart of one more mother breaks.
And our reply? ‘Look at the big picture;
This sort of thing is anecdotal.
A tiny fraction of the total.’
Pah!
From inside each plus...
Tuesday 24th September 2024 8:30 am
Meanwhile, in Ukraine
What are we fighting for?
Ukraine will win this war.
By gambit or caprice,
Ukraine will live in peace.
Though enemies have tried
To dent a nation’s pride,
Their onslaught is defied.
Ukraine will win this war.
Though cities crash and burn,
The displaced will return,
And conflict will adjourn.
Ukraine will live in peace.
For freedom will prevail
...
Tuesday 17th September 2024 8:59 pm
My Enemy
Maybe my enemy enjoys a joke,
When seated round a table with his mates.
I can believe that he’s a decent bloke,
Except when the demand of war dictates.
Perhaps he likes his football at weekends;
His mother might still bring his cup of tea.
Yet now it’s captured land that he defends,
And if he’s ordered he will shoot at me.
Our paths may well have crossed when we w...
Wednesday 11th September 2024 6:02 am
Business (A friendly face)
I took one in the back,
And fell down on the ground.
I sought a friendly face,
And saw one that I knew,
Approaching me at pace:
A pal from student days,
Now on the other side.
‘I’m not to blame,’ he says,
And shoots, in the same place.
‘It’s business, it’s not you.’
His words seemed quite profound,
(I don't think I replied)
Yet they took me aback,
As I lay th...
Friday 30th August 2024 9:59 pm
Kursk (A provocation!)
We feel bad about our provocation;
We didn’t mean to cause you such upset.
Of course, you are innocent and blameless;
Our troops were only sent in for a bet.
Our little strategic incursion
Was even-handed and sincerely meant.
There was no wish to violate your borders;
No malice was contained in our intent.
Wait a second, though! At provocation,
You’ve shown you...
Saturday 10th August 2024 8:30 am
Appeasement
It’s never going to work;
You do deals with the tough,
But soon he’ll cut up rough
And do his dirty stuff.
He just can’t get enough.
He’s never satisfied
Until your flame has died,
Snuffed out by his dark side.
By then his grin’s as wide
As some cream-licking cat.
Though preaching peace and that,
His word is worthless tat;
He’ll rase your homeland...
Tuesday 30th July 2024 7:16 am
Useless
He waddled his way to the Kremlin
As some kind of honest broker,
But anyone watching the horror show
Viewed him as one sick joker.
With his huff-puff of lies and flannel,
He claimed that he came in peace;
If only Kyiv would listen,
The bloody destruction would cease.
Then just a few days later,
Ukraine suffered thirty-plus dead;
Idiots can sometimes be usefu...
Tuesday 9th July 2024 6:05 am
Evacuation
Some people say home’s where the heart is found;
I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the being there,
The rooted opposite of somewhere else.
Fond memories may have tipped the scales
In favour of this slow, contented place:
The local shops, the chatter’s usual sound,
The morning stroll to coffee on the square,
The precious banality of passers-by,
Though each slab of this ecosphere wi...
Friday 28th June 2024 3:25 pm
Summit
‘Look at the big picture,’
Cried the man in the suit.
So I took his advice
And ignored the sniper,
The stiff, the nightly raid,
The trivia of grief.
I turned to the summit,
Its polished chandeliers,
Its underarm hygiene,
Its on-tap refreshment,
(‘Still or sparkling, Madam?),
While, in the dregs of war,
The uninvited crouch
And hope the shells will miss.
Friday 21st June 2024 8:14 am
Omelette
I remember the old dictum
About having to break some eggs,
But don’t recall the guided bombs,
Great cities beaten to a pulp,
Or blowing off somebody’s legs.
Sunday 2nd June 2024 8:37 am
Magnet (Kharkiv, 25 May 2024)
A magnet hung in the big, bright store,
Between the household and the sport,
When down came a pair of guided bombs
And more innocent lives were cut short.
Far away across the border,
Pampered strategists play chess;
They do not know the victims,
And are bothered even less.
This is the new reality
Of war devoid of shame,
Where women, men and children
Becom...
Monday 27th May 2024 7:43 am
The Naughty Little Boy
The naughty little boy:
He likes to roam around,
Invading foreign ground.
Harsh methods he’ll employ,
The naughty little boy:
He measures out the soil
That he intends to spoil
Or preferably destroy,
The naughty little boy:
A foe who stands alone
Is butchered by a drone:
His brand-new, shiny toy,
The naughty little boy:
No opposition views
Are broadcast on ...
Friday 24th May 2024 5:53 pm
Eurovision 2024
We have become defined by war.
Two years ago, we had the love.
Builders played and danced to our tune,
This fantasy world embraced us:
Plucky sorts, hung out for applause.
Now we are just part of the kitsch.
Since that time – more dead, injured and burned,
But not only that. Deeper marks
Have eaten into Free Ukraine:
The tears of a vanished childhood,
The shame of shr...
Sunday 12th May 2024 7:54 am
The Old Smoothie
There’s the old smoothie, turning on the charm.
Hunched behind his desk, far away from harm.
He doesn’t seem to care or give a toss
About the lives that he condemns to loss.
There’s the old smoothie, targeting Ukraine.
Oblivious to death, amused by pain,
He knows the masses have nowhere to hide
And are fair game if they live on that side.
There’s the old smoothie,...
Tuesday 7th May 2024 7:18 am
Draft Dodger
Are we allowed to be afraid?
Is it compulsory to fight?
Many would choose to be elsewhere
When faced with a foe and its might.
Are we a traitor if we leave,
Or a patriot if we stay?
It is no shame to show contempt
For warfare, and to keep away.
And ‘pacifist’, that grubby word
That hardly dares to speak its name?
Why should we join the ranks of hate
Or pl...
Monday 29th April 2024 8:24 am
Still Life with Massacre
It’s clever how they’ve set this up:
A bowl of fruit,
A jar,
A china dog,
An iron bar (an iron bar?)
Behind – some crumpled remains,
The stench of rotting heaps
Of defenceless women and men.
Still, no one can see or smell this,
So that’s all right then.
Wednesday 24th April 2024 5:48 pm
Guess Who?
He won’t give a penny to help Ukraine;
He won’t lift a finger or part with change.
He wants his America ‘great again’
And thinks that such places are foreign and strange.
He won’t give a penny to help Ukraine;
He prefers to do favours for his mates:
Like jailbirds whose crimes are far from mundane,
And heads of authoritarian states.
He won’t give a penny to help U...
Monday 8th April 2024 7:29 am
Words from Bucha (April 2024)
Two years ago, we had no words,
Because words seemed superfluous.
Branded upon our consciousness,
All we needed was the image:
Each scorched mark would remind us
Of newly discovered horror.
But, in the end, the words returned;
Our memories demanded them.
A less reliable record,
Yet devastating for all that:
Shifting, changing, containing tears
As well as anger. Tha...
Tuesday 2nd April 2024 8:02 am
Odesa: 21 dead
They have made a mess of the house next door;
Mum, Dad, two kids and a cat are no more.
Can someone explain what they do this for?
Who knows? They just don’t like us, I suppose.
In years gone by, it was never like this;
We greeted, with a handshake or a kiss,
Our nearby friends. How has it gone amiss?
Who knows? They just don’t like us, I suppose.
It looks as thou...
Tuesday 19th March 2024 7:22 pm
I saw
I saw
The flare of the gun
Against the setting sun
My baby's smiling face
I kept within a lonely space
My wife's hand in mine
For one final time
I saw
The blood from my chest
Sending my body to rest
The future I thought would be
Drift away to a blood red sea
The hands of Time slowly cease
Feeling a weary inner peace
I saw
...Monday 26th February 2024 12:04 pm
Two Years On - Poems on the War in Ukraine
As you may have seen on the News and Features page, I have compiled a selection of fifty poems to mark the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Some of these poems will be familiar to regular contributors, but a number have not yet featured on the WOL blog.
This is a private print and not available for general sale, but I would be pleased to send a free PDF copy by e-mail to anyb...
Thursday 22nd February 2024 5:08 pm
Two Years On
Time, or what passes for time,
Is a culprit, most unkind,
Stealing what we find,
Emptying our mind.
Time should be the music
Which everybody plays,
Adding to our days
In unexpected ways.
But time is made of windows,
Shattered one by one in hate,
A commentary upon this state,
Where rescue parties come too late.
Time is the gun, time is the shell,
...Tuesday 20th February 2024 6:58 pm
Time Passes
‘Time passes,’ said the man at our table.
‘People want something new.’ I guess he’s right.
It's the prevailing theory round here.
‘The same old faces,’ opined another;
‘You know, Zelensky. Always wants money.’
And ‘here’ is anywhere, maybe everywhere.
Time passes. All of us know that feeling:
You turn a new page in a calendar
Or put away Christmas decorations.
At cricket...
Friday 16th February 2024 5:41 pm
Bad News
A morning to freeze the spirits.
As they shiver in hollowed times,
Workers stamp and spit used breath.
At the corner I see two men:
Their eyes wet from today’s bad news.
‘You can always tell,’ says my guide;
'They both had sons where it happened.'
I try to do an interview:
Get short shrift. Understandably.
As we leave, one of them calls out:
‘Poetry is dead. Art is dead...
Thursday 8th February 2024 8:17 am
The Closing Of The Red Sea
I saw the blood run down the walls
Within the children's tears
I heard the parliamentary halls
Resound with warring cheers
I felt the shock of bomb & gun
Within gasps of anticipation
I saw their prey run & run
From nation killing nation
I drew my scythe & licked my lips
A hefty load to swallow
I told the ferryman, he needed ships
For, they will b...
Wednesday 7th February 2024 6:48 pm
A Genesis?
The world keeps shouting
whilst, the quiet
sit in despair, witnessing
the mould & rot spread
Trying not to Inhale
greedy spores that rot hope
Exhaling a desperate, empty foreboding
‘Times they are a-changin’’
Echoes from an old radio somewhere
A white flag drifts past, stained red
We rub our eyes
But, there's fire in the sky
And death all around.
Sunday 4th February 2024 10:56 pm
Queues
We queued at the supermarket;
I saw that everyone was dead.
And yet they were still standing.
Out of defiance? Contempt?
Perhaps just out of habit.
We queued at the bakery,
And in the rows of cakes
We saw the faces of the fallen:
Unmoved, at last at peace.
We queued at the bus stop.
A passer-by called out to us
And we called back,
But no one was alive
...Saturday 3rd February 2024 8:48 am
Musée des Beaux Arts (January 2024)
The war’s cold exclusion has stripped out love.
Two years on, I stroll among the Bruegels;
The pictures dazzle in their joyless way,
Reflecting life’s treadmill of chores, horrors,
Its accommodations and its intrigues,
Its little stratagems for making do,
Not forgetting massacres and revenge.
I’ve read about the gas used at the front
To flush out choking soldiers marked for...
Wednesday 24th January 2024 6:59 am
Tunnel
You can spot the signs:
They talk of ‘hard-earned cash’,
And ‘putting our people first.’
We know what’s coming next:
‘Yes, the invasion was wrong,
But do we really….?’
Or, ‘why can’t they get together
And sort the whole thing out?’
Fatuous bewilderment
Is hardly an excuse.
It is so damned easy to say:
‘We expected some light
At the end of the tunnel’
When you...
Sunday 14th January 2024 8:07 am
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