The fractured walls of wickedness in war

Are on display each day at any time.

The morning tittle tattles rise and fall

And poets churn out verses in sweet rhyme,

But somewhere, here or not so far away,

A child is killed by missiles from above,

A mother grieves for her departed son

And husbands weep for what they think was love,

While no one makes the evil men account

For...

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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.

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You may have the misfortune to

Live upstairs from or right next door

To somebody they want to kill.

It’s not your choice; you have no voice

In whose blood they would like to spill.

And, being close, it could be you,

Who sees the bomb fall through their floor.

No one's fault. The luck of the draw.

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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‘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.

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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...

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The washing on the line is mine, is mine;

The washing on the line, it dries, it dries.

My best friend down the road, he dies, he dies;

Our enemy of old, he lies, he lies.

The washing on the line, it sighs, it sighs.

The washing on the line is mine, is mine;

The washing on the line, it blows, it blows.

Desire for revenge, it grows, it grows;

The guilty man nearby, he cr...

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Don’t shoot!

Stop the violence,

Stop the killing.

Don’t waste your time with gods,

Or clerics on the greasy pole,

Or warped ideology

Which tells you what to think,

Or the cult of the madmen,

The travelling circus,

The usual suspects,

The old men in suits,

The gap –

Between the theory and the practice.

Be yourself;

Lay down your arms,

Reach out your hand...

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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...

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‘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...

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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...

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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

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A viper slides its way beneath the grass;

The animals of prey are on the prowl.

The innocent and helpless stand no chance

Against the savage tastes of hawk and owl.

Upstairs, forbidden lovers take the plunge;

Their beads of sticky sweat adorn the bed.

She’s fast asleep while he boosts up his pack;

Outside waits a procession of the dead.

The hunters beat the heavin...

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