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.

Counter Lies

Workers are all liars of course, and thieves;

Whereas computers are infallible

As popes, absolutely reliable.

It should be expected no one believes

Denials, when sums of money are not there

Who’s guilty is beyond doubt. Then the state

Visits predetermined judicial fate

On those the faultless accounting software

Has caught out. Profits must be protected

At all costs, even if that means there’ll be

An occasional legal travesty;

The system works as might be expected.

Compensation can always be deployed

As a mitigation for lives destroyed.

D. A.

20/20 Vision

Eschewing hindsight and looking forwards

To see such a world in which TV news

Isn’t mainly bombed-out buildings or views

Of squalid camps, crowded alleys and yards

Teeming with desperate refugees. Instead

There will be universal reports

Of abandoned border posts and passports,

And no minefields where travellers fear to tread.

A worldwide commonwealth finally beckoned,

Meeting needs, not profit margins, too few,

Advocates have thought was long overdue:

 Cooperative advantages reckoned.

An impossible vision? When really

The imperative is to see clearly.

D. A.

Totalled

From all the deadly calculus of war,

With mounting tolls that are so horrific

They become just a gruesome statistic,

Let this accounting be for one, not more.

Focus on a single obscenity,

What should be an unimaginable fact,

A child killed through a deliberate act

In vain pursuit of national liberty.

When pulling the trigger is justified

As self-defence, which partial god or creed

Can be invoked to excuse such a deed,

By laying the guilt on the other side?

The gains of war cannot be reconciled

With loss of a man, a woman, a child.

D. A.

Migration

It seems the children of migrations past

Quickly become so indigenous they

Look to prevent others passing this way,

Becoming politicians who’ve amassed

Power and wealth enough to insist upon

Channel crossers in inflatable boats

Being collateral, exchangeable for votes,

No more than a business deal to be done.

The notion of migration surely implies,

Whether or not refuge is provided,

Humanity must remain divided;

The balance sheet decides who lives, who dies.

Rather than quotas and exclusion orders,

Why not a better world without borders?

D. A.