9-11 (Faces)
Hiroshima, Baghdad
And a thousand other places
This time with faces
Tag Archives: War
THOUGHTS TO PONDER
THOUGHTS TO PONDER – a story from the internet
An old Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson about how he felt about the tragedy (9-11) and what should be done.
He said “I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving compassionate one.”
“So,” asked the grandson, “which wolf will win the fight in your heart?”
“The one that I feed,” answered the grandfather
HEROES OF HOLLAND
HEROES OF HOLLAND
“Heroic, Resolute, Compassionate”
After the second world war
added by Queen Wilhelmina to
Amsterdam’s coat of arms
History and one look at their faces
would clearly show
it could have been there
for the whole country and much sooner
Opening the dikes to drown the armies
holding Haarlem against the Spanish
surviving slaughter of the innocents
“February Strike” against the Nazis
The armies may have been defeated
the people never
GREECE – INDEPENDENCE DAY 2000
GREECE – INDEPENDENCE DAY 2000
We stand in the sunlight of Athens
birthplace of democracy, philosophy
theatre and reason
Here man first learned true freedom
Created gods
in the image of his vices and his virtues
and learned to embrace and best them all
Stores in Athens close for the parade
people gather from miles around
For hours past the viewing stand
soldiers and sailors march in step
Overhead the jets and choppers
roar by in strict formation
Thirty deep and more
people push and flow and smile on cue
I search the marchers and the crowd
Looking for that one toga, one book
One independent mind
One ancient Greek
WIDOWS
WIDOWS
Greece is a land of widows
black dresses with brooms on empty stairs
This comes from ten thousand years of wars
Greece is a land of proud and arrogant men
This comes from lives of great danger
And the supply and demands of
ten thousand years of widows
UNSPEAKABLE
UNSPEAKABLE
The chosen people were forbidden
ever to speak the name of God
Which is understandable
when you think of all
the unspeakable things
that are done
All in the name
of God
ANNA
ANNA
Could a drop of blood
from the pen of Anna Akhmatova
enter my blood
that I might write with a deeper red
A husband falls to the firing squad
a son in prison for no greater crime
than carrying his father’s name
Seventeen months at Leningrad prison
she waits in line each day for word of life
mid screams of those who learn of death
She has been a poet for thirty years and more
woman in line asks, “can you describe this”
she becomes a poet now
NATIVE AMERICAN POW
NATIVE AMERICAN POW
There is a legend in Africa
It says that you cannot ever really
kill a people or take over their land
Because their souls
will be reborn in
your children
WOW!
HILLMAN
HILLMAN
A shadow on the wall in Hiroshima
ashes on a lake in Austin
Donna looks over the side of the boat
and cries as they drift
because she cannot see his face in the ashes
She might also have looked
for 81 years from China Sea to here
for the feet of the best dancer she ever knew
the graceful movements of Tai Chi
the hands of massage
and the mind and heart of a poet
The ashes drift to the banks and bottom of Lake
Austin
All that remains are the shadows on our minds and
hearts
And the walls of Hiroshima
SHAMAN’S HEART
SHAMAN’S HEART
Two centuries back I look down at legs
covered with buckskin white as whitest sand
In the valley below are the tepees
I go to my home
my wife rises to greet me
I speak her name
like water laughing over small stones
Feel full and more with a love for her
as warm as the sumer dawn
strong as my manhood rising
I am a chief and the son of a chief
not brave enough to deny
the life of a brave
Though Shaman at heart
not Shaman enough to break
the heart or the will of my father
I hang by my flesh at a sundance
and lead the young men to war
Say goodbye to my wife and babe in her arms
ride off to the folly of a raid with no cause
As spirit rises from body
my enemies honour my courage
cut my heart from my chest and eat it
Neither friend – nor foe – nor father know
it is not the heart of a brave