Submitted by Janine on
I have been talking with Brussels transport workers and trade unionists in the aftermath of the 22 March Daesh bombings which killed 32 people and injured hundreds more. Amidst the news reporting and political demagogy, it is important that their voices are heard.
Submitted by Janine on
When places of worship
become places of wonder
Bright-eyed guides
will tell wide-eyed visitors
You won't believe
what people used to believe
And then, with downcast eyes
they will add
And you'll never believe
what some of them did
in the name of what they believed
Submitted by Janine on
Hopeless force the Dardanelles
Shells, death knells and straits to hell
Terra firma, firmer terror
History puts it down to error
Wounded yet still predatory
Terrorise for territory
Ground of flesh and rocks from bones
Lay out wire for telephones
Cable London, cross terrain
Thousands dead, a few yards gained
Must despatch a good news story
Inched a bit more territory
Submitted by Janine on
Published in Solidarity 396, 2 March 2016.
Submitted by Janine on
Dulce et decorum est
As Owen wrote, the ancient lie
Inscribed upon the soldier's breast
And told to men when sent to die
But tell me, for commemoration
Below the flag that's raised to fool us
Did they really die for nation
Or rather for the nation's rulers?
Photo: Wilfred Owen
Submitted by Janine on
A century ago, with Britain at war, the Woman's Dreadnought published this poem:
CHRISTMAS EVE
- to man the comfortable
Submitted by Janine on
We have a fearless leader we can trust
Who's proved to us already that he would
Destroy communities for their own good
Burn shadows into pavements, flesh to dust
He flaunts the firmest finger, face that fits
A leader who can make that tough decision
Personifies the stone-heart politician
Choose yes or no to blow the world to bits
- When button push one day will come to shove
Submitted by Janine on
Haters gonna hate
Dictators gonna dictate
Tyrants gonna tyrannise
Rebels will rebel and rise
Rival rulers gonna ride
Rebellion's discontented tide
Bombers gonna bomb
Pogromists will pogrom
Fighters gonna fight
Families gonna take flight
Borders gonna rise
Papers gonna scandalise
Submitted by Janine on
Boris Johnson nominates
the President of the United States
He says the Nobel Prize for Peace
should go to Donald Trump
But that joker has been played before
No satire in it any more
Irony died, doesn't he see?
when Kissinger won it in seventy-three
Submitted by Janine on
Some ballistic poetry from Janine to entertain the troops - well, the protesters - at the DSEI arms fair at Excel in London's docklands.
