14th February, 2024

This day past gangsters gunned down their rivals,

Aiming to further their enterprises,

Protecting the profit that arises,

Quite careless of who their ambition kills.

Almost a century on and it is still

The way rival gangs contend for power,

Only now they’re not mobsters, but dour

Faced leaders, claiming it’s their national will

Excusing the vile slaughter that ensues,

Relentless carnage, merciless campaigns,

With no refuge wherever terror reigns;

Deaths of innocents all over the news.

Amidst ruins and rubble children play,

A grim new meaning for this Ash Wednesday.

D. A.

Kitchener’s Finger

Lord Kitchener is flexing his finger,

A beckoning to come hither once more,

Inducing young men and women to war.

In the cenotaph memory lingers,

Although it appears amnesia prevails

When a call to the colours comes their way

And they sleep-march towards their beds of clay;

Too often, it seems, humanity fails.

Enough now of the lame old excuses

For yet another bellicose mission,

When it’s rivalry and competition,

And the prospects of profit seduces.

A radical change is required because

The price of peace is capitalism’s loss.

D. A.

Kitchener’s Finger

Lord Kitchener is flexing his finger,

A beckoning to come hither once more,

Inducing young men and women to war.

In the cenotaph memory lingers,

Although it appears amnesia prevails

When a call to the colours comes their way

And they sleep-march towards their beds of clay;

Too often, it seems, humanity fails.

Enough now of the lame old excuses

For yet another bellicose mission,

When it’s rivalry and competition,

And the prospects of profit seduces.

A radical change is required because

The price of peace is capitalism’s loss.

D. A.

Kitchener’s Finger

Lord Kitchener is flexing his finger,

A beckoning to come hither once more,

Inducing young men and women to war.

In the cenotaph memory lingers,

Although it appears amnesia prevails

When a call to the colours comes their way

And they sleep-march towards their beds of clay;

Too often, it seems, humanity fails.

Enough now of the lame old excuses

For yet another bellicose mission,

When it’s rivalry and competition,

And the prospects of profit seduces.

A radical change is required because

The price of peace is capitalism’s loss.

D. A.

Kitchener’s Finger

Lord Kitchener is flexing his finger,

A beckoning to come hither once more,

Inducing young men and women to war.

In the cenotaph memory lingers,

Although it appears amnesia prevails

When a call to the colours comes their way

And they sleep-march towards their beds of clay;

Too often, it seems, humanity fails.

Enough now of the lame old excuses

For yet another bellicose mission,

When it’s rivalry and competition,

And the prospects of profit seduces.

A radical change is required because

The price of peace is capitalism’s loss.

D. A.

Bald Eagle

The bald eagle becomes more decrepit,

Talons still brandishing its three arrows,

But the olive branch it long since let go,

All the while losing its grip, bit by bit.

Fanciers misleadingly quibble about

Whether the right wing or the left is best

To keep their bird flying, though, even blessed

With power in both, the body’s giving out.

Meanwhile its emboldened prey no longer

Grudgingly quails, turning a passive back,

Not only resisting, but will attack

Viciously; all the while feeling stronger.

Amidst blood and feathers, look closely, look,

It is not an eagle, but a lame duck.

D. A.

Meaning of Genocide

Must a word’s definition stay fixed now

Forever? Having stood at Arrivals

And Selection, the railhead that appals,

As the significance of Birkenau

Presses home in its desolate extent,

The dreadful power of words misused exposed.

But who decides a definition’s closed,

Or meaning is particularly absent?

Circumstance must make a pedant relent

Surely? How many thousands dying and dead

Before the word is allowed to be said?

Is it qualified through stated intent?

Either by gas chambers or bombs,

Genocides are as vicious as pogroms.

D. A.

Self Defence

‘Self-defence’ is the mantra that’s cited,

These days, for acts of aggression that’re launched,

So unwonted threats to free trade may be staunched

And economies saved from being blighted.

Or as a response to atrocity,

Fully justifying, or so it’s claimed

Greater atrocities, counting the maimed

And the dead as an acceptable fee.

Then left right march in solidarity

With whichever cause, with judgment’s suspense

Is deemed to be acting in self-defence,

By those whose partial view lacks clarity.

Best self-defence, for a good life and health?

Transcend borders, choose a world commonwealth.

D. A.

Self Defence

‘Self-defence’ is the mantra that’s cited,

These days, for acts of aggression that’re launched,

So unwonted threats to free trade may be staunched

And economies saved from being blighted.

Or as a response to atrocity,

Fully justifying, or so it’s claimed

Greater atrocities, counting the maimed

And the dead as an acceptable fee.

Then left right march in solidarity

With whichever cause, with judgment’s suspense

Is deemed to be acting in self-defence,

By those whose partial view lacks clarity.

Best self-defence, for a good life and health?

Transcend borders, choose a world commonwealth.

D. A.

Self Defence

‘Self-defence’ is the mantra that’s cited,

These days, for acts of aggression that’re launched,

So unwonted threats to free trade may be staunched

And economies saved from being blighted.

Or as a response to atrocity,

Fully justifying, or so it’s claimed

Greater atrocities, counting the maimed

And the dead as an acceptable fee.

Then left right march in solidarity

With whichever cause, with judgment’s suspense

Is deemed to be acting in self-defence,

By those whose partial view lacks clarity.

Best self-defence, for a good life and health?

Transcend borders, choose a world commonwealth.

D. A.