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How to get everything you ever wanted

1.
Invent a war.
Something bloody and fratricidal.
Lose an uncle to barrel bombs
a brother to secret police.

2.
Three years in, flee.
Pack only what you can carry:
clothes, smartphone, children, cash.
Slip away at night, in silence.

3.
Take your leave of the flat, bakery, office,
rubble-filled streets where the kids once ran
shell of the cafe where old men
drank qahwa, played she...

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syriarefugeeswarpoliticsmigration

this will be a re-run

it’ll be the comfort of the saturday afternoons of your childhood
sat in front of the TV with bread and dripping
watching John Wayne set the world to rights with a gun
it’ll be Kenneth More on tin legs reaching for the sky
with a re-mix of stirring music Vaughan Williams would kill for
it’ll be a tearjerker in the final reel
where you know the hero’s going to die
but his girl will remember ...

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syriabombswarpolitics

This bird

Look at this thing, this gruesome thing, this shake-off from the slick.

A car mechanic’s rag, a bag of bile, a doodling hand that drags

a biro clot of crudeness up the beach.

This foul-up. This bird. This broken component of our world.

Then look at that: a flesh gorged kite, circling

while cluster bombs slake a starving nation’s soil.

America’s pin puckered vein, the fight for th...

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birdsoilwarAfghanistanpollutionbombs

Field of Youth

Finding you wasn't hard

Although you all looked the same

Beneath ever changing skies

Stark bright and upright

Against Summer cornflower skies

Bathed in sleepy Autumn hues

Pure, under skirts of wintery slate

Did you think, at twenty two

Generations would stand here

Imagining the glory, the fear

Gripping anger and sorrow

 

Racing clouds allow the sun a turn

You...

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deathFrancelest we forgetwarWW1youth

THE PLACE WHERE ONLY DEAD MEN SLEEP

Decaying corpses, unique stench
With cordite blowing, past our trench
I no longer hear the warning rattle
But smell and taste impending battle

In the distance sounds a Lewis Gun
Maybe aimed at some unlucky Hun
So far in front of our barbed wire
Amongst the brown serrated mire

The Corporal said this place was ‘Wipers’
Mud and blood and German Snipers
The Sergeant Major called it Ypres
...

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WarRememberancesoldiersfear

RAW EMOTION

Live every day like it was meant to be,
helping all those who want to be free.
Feel the warmth in a genuine smile,
a childish giggle can bridge the miles.

Surround everybody with happy ways,
bask in the heat of the suns warm rays.
A world of love and peace for all,
where we help the ones who trip and fall.

...

I may be a dreamer of fanciful sights
but dreams are better than childis...

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WARPROTESTPEACEUNITYBROTHERHOOD

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

"We can't risk losing people,
Killed in action, far away.
What'll happen to their wives,
Their children, the next of kin?

We have to end the war,
But, none the less, we are
Too proud, too good, too vigorous,
To just give up, to just retreat.

Let's see what happens," did they say,
And to end a war, to save their lives,
They killed two hundred thousand people,
And didn't stop at all.

...

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warwar poetrywar poemwar poemshiroshimanagasakiatomatom bombatomic wardeath

In the end, nothing changed at all

Open your books,

On page seventy-two.

Read these sides,

And learn about the past,

Which is not anymore.

 

We learn about war,

About hate and racism,

And they call it past,

And close their eyes

To not see reality.

 

One day, they will,

I hope, will understand,

That to be in denial,

Doesn't help altogether.

Because in the end,

 

Nothing changed a...

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warpastbe in denialwar poetrywar poemanti war poemsnothing changedchanging

Good old times

Old, black-white photographs,
Show soldiers, smiling, proud.
First guns in their hands,
Then bullets in heads,
They died for their fatherland.

Not long ago, when war has reigned,
It poisoned the peoples' mind.
Turned love to hate,
Made people die,
They died for their fatherland.

We say "We learned", but we all know,
That we didn't learn at all.
Just look around, people die,
Day fo...

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hatelearnpacifistwarwar poetryanti war poemsanti war

SHELL SHOCK

The whistle blows to sound the charge

and over the top they bustle and barge,

covered from head to toe in mud

and soon tainted with flesh and blood.

 

Up the ladder with slippery rungs,

a scream of rage from terror filled lungs,

adrenalin coursing through every vein

with the fear of not coming back again.

 

Knee-deep mud sucking boots from feet,

tangled in barbed w...

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WARDEATHFEARTERRORFUTILITYSHOCKHORRORPOEMPOETRYTRAGEDYINSANITYMADNESS

Mini gun

For me there could only be one

The beautiful Dillon mini-gun

Can shoot 6000 rounds per minute

Damage really has no limit

 

Six beautiful long barrels

Turning anything into particles

Shear violence is the purpose

Say goodbye to the calmness

 

Mechanical sound is glorious

Spinning more just for badness

There is nothing that is indestructible

So big and yet beau...

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gunfightwarpeace

From where we are

Sometimes in this world we need to be broken

It is only then a new life can be woken

Stripping away all that is damaged and lost

Forgetting the past and what it has cost

 

Listen to the unspoken words of your soul

Rise from the ashes and aim for your goal

Believing in yourself is a good place to start

Is it time to rip the questions apart?

 

It is not always the stron...

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unwindchillrelaxwarlove

TREE WISE MONKEYS

 

If you close your eyes

to the world outside,

will the fighting suddenly cease?

Will brother and sister

hold hands together

and build a new life of peace?

 

Does a person, born blind,

not hear the teeth grind

as disaster, from greed, is grown?

That because he can’t see,

thinks we're are all living free

and reaping the seeds we have sown?

*

If you block...

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WARDEATHTYRANTSPOLITICIANSSPEAKLISTENHEARSEEHELPDEFIANT

THE FUTILITY OF WAR

Death; the dealer

of the final deck of life.

No hidden agendas,

just a cold slate to wipe.

 

With hand and sword

or rock and stone,

with shaft sailing deadly

through grey skies, alone.

 

The smarter the weapon,

the reaper delights

at a fulsome harvest

of terror and cries.

 

They split the atom

and split the odds,

they split the proceeds

but nev...

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DEATHWARFUTILITYPAIN

THE FEATHER ON THE TRIGGER

It's just a way of life

said the man with the gun,

you win it or you lose it

and when all is said and done.

 

But the odds and the favour

can be tipped from over here

by a warm winning smile

from a boy with no fear.

 

They say that respect

is a game hard won

but they can't see the smile

down the barrel of the gun.

 

The feather on the trigger

tipping...

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warchildrengunbarrelbulletslifedeath

THE VICTORY DAY

The 8th -9th of May – the Greatest Day,
the Saint Holiday – the Victory Day.
A holiday with glee and spree,
a holiday with tears that appear
remembering those soldiers,
the heroes of the Second World War.
Those hardcore days
we don’t want to face anymore.
That was the largest war
in the history of mankind,
I don’t want you to be blind
but to know and remember the facts:
almost 58 milli...

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warpeace

The Gallipoli Fallen

The Gallipoli Fallen

 

From Perth to Auckland came the merry brave

Fighting for King and Empire and the motherland to save

The Anzac was led with zeal and might

Churchill's men prepared to fight the merry fight

 

To the Dardanelles the men were led ashore

To open a supply route to Russia, so ill-equipped and poor

Churchill's plan to obliterate the Ottomans from the war

...

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WarDeath

Don't You Dare

Don't you dare lie to us about Islam 

Don't you dare say ISIS is more than just a sham

The truth is Islam is all about peace and that's a fact

The truth is ISIS has no truth at all, it's all just an act

 

For just like Christianity, Islam has been misused

For just like Christianity, Islam has been abused

By power seeking maniacs who speak no truth at all

There’s never been ...

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WarPeaceReligionIslamChristianity

Rage On The Loose

Aggression seeps from jaundiced bones.
IS kills too many crouching in their homes
Al Queda murdered thousands in Twin Towers
the result of all those deaths is sobbing showers
the rain of tears could form a salty river to clean
out all the evil that shattered so many a dream
and in the end those fighters only ever produce
a waste of life and resources with rage on the loose…

Wake up you d...

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aggressionterrorismviolencewar

"Night will Fall"

 For those who are alive

To see the British newsreel

And remember the spring of 1945.

 

The British army entered Bergen-Belsen,

The heart of Germany -

The town of beauty and harmony.

Neat gardens, rich farms, …

All around seemed to have only charms.

English soldiers began to admire the place,

In any case, up to the moment

When they felt the smell.

It looked lik...

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holocausthumanitypeacewar

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