Skip to main content

War

While I am glad justice has been served for so many, I hesitate to celebrate. Osama bin Laden is one man among many who shared his sentiment. This is not about the defeat of one man, and that's why this is not over. We, as a human race, are only as good as our weakest individual; so, we have a long way to go before peace is the reigning force among us. Each of us must constantly ask ourselves what image of America are we portraying? What image of humanity are we extending to others? If this is to be such a historic moment, let us not simply celebrate death, but contemplate the suffering of others and better ourselves so that history need not repeat itself.


As we think on these things and evaluate our role in peace/war, I offer a poem I wrote years ago that still aptly summarizes my feelings toward all of these things. I'd love to hear your thoughts.


Cheers,
PD


~War~


Static whispers on the radio
Something is wrong in Sarajevo

They crash! Kamikaze are idols
But God forbid they feel the cold

Cold breath of our country, so strong, so great
We’re making the world better! But we’re too late

Men aiming guns at each other’s eyes,
Don’t see your own injustices, see mine!

We’re stuck in the trenches and they’ll never stop
As long as we’re here, we’re doomed to hear the POP

Of grenades thrown out at our children
No one… no one will ever win

Fight the faceless foe, never let him go!
They don’t tell you what you don’t want to know

We’re winning! We’re winning this damned war
Though hundreds of thousands of corpses lay heaped at our door

Can’t you see we’re protecting the free world?
Saviors are we, and so we stab with our swords

But into whose chest do we plunge the blade?
Our friends? Ha! Maybe last year, but now that fades

I’m so tired of these damned battles
My mind reels and my head rattles

Fire! Fire! Seared onto our brains, branded
Oh God! The anonymous enemy has just landed!

Reveal yourself! Take off that mask!
Fine, you won’t? I will… gasp!

It’s me.

- P. Desai (10/2006)


 War/Peace (Deconstructed Book 1, P.Desai, 2003)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Now Brown Cow?

No one ever says brown is their favorite color- it's not bright, it's not vibrant, and it's not very beautiful. It is earthy. It is natural. It is skin, soil, butterfly wing, and death. It is, perhaps the deepest color of the earth, as well as the most elevated. How 'bout them brown apples? ~Brown~   What are you that brings sweat to men's brows as they tear you apart, reaping and forcing you to give for centuries? You thirst for the rain, sweet martyr,  while they thirst for your very last fruit. What are you that men will kill thousands of their brethren, holding you hostage along with their own brothers? You must quietly drink the blood they have spilled, weeping silently as they mar your skin with shallow mines. What are you that an exile longs to crawl back to your warm womb rather than seek riches elsewhere?  He will lower his lips in a fervor of final peace as he kisses that which can be his only home. What are you that men shamelessly use you for thei...
3 comments
Read more

Multiple Universes

I have a flash of memory from when I was a child where I was standing in my room looking around. I noticed the bed, the dresser, the bookshelves, and the many things that lay strewn about. I also noted the spaces in the room, the emptiness that was existed between the things. It occurred to me- quite suddenly- that there could be another universe stacked on top the one I was in. I imagined having the vision to see another Poonam busily drawing a picture on the ground, or else another family in my house altogether as I stood there and looked on. Why not? I thought. If the universe is infinite and if the divine is omnipotent, why can’t there be infinite parallel worlds stacked atop one another? Why do I presume to believe I must be able to see or sense them, and take that as the only evidence that they do or do not exist? My human form is limited. I may not be endowed with the ability, the faculty to see or understand such a limitless world. Humbly, I am an amoeba compared to this univ...
2 comments
Read more

This Poem Doesn't Help the Hungry

Friends, I am constantly in awe (read: shock) of our ability to acquire, to possess, and to surround ourselves by things. I am also constantly torn between my own egotistical desire to own things and my higher desire to minimize, simplify, and become unattached. In another lifetime, perhaps I could live as a monk would, with few possessions and few earthly needs beyond basic sustenance. For now, I am still drawn to mindless entertainment and material acquisitions. Still, I offer my dream, my ~Two Cents~ Perhaps I've no right to speak Having been born in the spring of life Grown up in the summer And never having known a fall or winter, But I find it ever so strange how we do What we do with a face of false confidence of quiet hibernation And march like ants toward our certainties without even being able to look them in the face. For our brood we acquire ever larger houses Stock them full of trinkets and comforts. Things we may never use in our life times ... just...
2 comments
Read more