Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Slow Children at Play

All the quick children have gone inside, called
by their mothers to hurry-up-wash-your-hands
honey-diner's-getting-cold, just-wait-till-your-father-gets-home---
and only the slow children out on the lawns, marking off
paths between fireflies, making soft little sounds with their
mouths, ohs
that glow and go out and glow. and their slow mothers
flickering,
pale in the dusk, watching them turn in the gentle air, watching
them
twirling, their arms spread wide, thinking, these are my children,
thinking
Where is their dinner? Where has their father gone

Cecilia Woloch


Suicide Soldier

I'm a civilized soldier not
a suicide bomber
I don't have killing equipment
round my waist
no gun, no bullets, no grenades.

My family won't get paid
when I die
I don't ask God to bless me
or America


(WRM)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Cost of War.

The professional soldier, the pride of the nation,
Well trained, but under equipped;
Fighting a war no one longer wants to sanction,
Homeward bound wounded, when a road wire was tripped.
Embittered, embattled in legal action,
To claim compensation through MOD hoops,
The disabled; paraplegics; amputees prosthetically enabled,
Bringing the cost of the war home to roost.
Even the most enthusiastic warmonger,
Loses the urge to fight, at the loss of one's own,
In a war with no meaning, no victor, no ending;
So what is the point of yet again sending,
The pride of our youth to further embroil,
The Iraqi and Afghanistan people,
For a reason no better than a barrel of oil.
j (in response)

Anonymous said...

Don't you think there is a blurred line between the suicide bomber and the soldier?
both doing what they think is right in the name of some god and some country.
I see it clearly but can't find the words to convince ONE other person - at least so-far.

Anonymous said...

Dear WRM, any good at desk top publishing? Suggest your poem on left hand page with my response on right as anthology for 2007. Title ? A Matter of Sex across the Pond ?
j

william said...

No j I am not good at desk top publishing especially not in a blog. When I first did this blog - one day I think - your poem did show up next to mine as you describe but I don't know where it came from or where it went.
What has sex to do with it? nobody knows about the valentine card.
WRM