Born to Strife and Contention

Hamas Hangs Children to Act as Human Shields

when will and passion are removed,
when resistance double-talk
is branded onto never-ending anxiety,
when determination and satisfaction
are as fundamental as food,
a mind-blowing similitude is imprinted
of one’s self crawling over pulverized concrete,
as the gnawing sound of military boots
carries out abductions for victims
headed toward open graves.

why make weapons of destruction,
if not to inaugurate a bloody war,
to spate abuse and death by genocide,
to create statistics of shelved body parts
and to encourage irrational ideology?

chilling to the teeth,
tranquil in scorching sun,
courage is to be remembered.
dogmas and –isms draw us
into the non-poetry of decomposition.
coexistence mutates into an abstract,
bipolar state of observance and malevolence.

when level-headed ethics never prevail,
and macho men rampage with sincerity,
madness undermines every rational practice
of benignity and simultaneity.

left untenanted, in our public world,
impotent diplomatic development
extorts us to applaud like a game show audience.

when the statistical death count,
and the itemizing of landing points,
and the remembrance of range
and the particularization of cultural transformations
is so unlimited that no one can distinguish
between the beginnings and the end of combat,
then puerile decapitation shall fail to enrage.

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Hear this on Sound Cloud

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Written for:

Poetics – War Poetry

Today, Gabriella prompts a war poem.

Image credits: HAMAS TERRORISTS USE CHILDREN AS HUMAN SHIELDS IN GAZA In Stand Up For The Truth

Three Childhood Senryu

Cursing Anime Children

crayons stuffed in holes
garden filled with many toys
children live inside

dreaming of princes
childish transpiration
unrealistic

between good and bad
boys were caught chanting curses
scribed in ancient books

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Posted for:

gooseberry Poetry Picnic Week 13:

Childhood, Dreams, Books, Role Models

Photo credit:  deviantart by konan376

when men are like children

Annotation:

This time, I will start with the annotation.

This piece was written for Wordsmith Wednesday – Snooping  . Victoria essentially asked, “Have you written any short stories or poems that were inspired as a result of listening to conversations in public places?”

I was at an office today where two women at the reception desk were talking. One had a packet in her hand containing a set school portraits. However, the subject of the portraits was not a child. It was her husband, who is a school teacher. Included in the packed was a Child ID card, in case he went missing. The two women were laughing and making fun of the whole concept of a grown man in a child-portrait framework. The conversation of course flowed to the fact that men act like children, so the wife needed to keep this missing child card, of her husband, in case he ever got lost.

So, of course, I wrote a men are like children themed poem.

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Adding this after the fact, due to someone saying that the poem is not very flattering to men:

I am writing this in the voice of the women who are making fun of the husband. I do not think all men are children.  Some men are tooooo serious. Some men are toooo power hungry. Some men are there for you, and are loving and caring. I’ve singled out a situation about a man I never met, who might not even be childish, based on a conversation. Why? Because the prompt here is about snooping, and I found the conversation interesting and animated. For all I know, the women talking may not think this man is childish, just went in that direction because they found it funny to see the man’s picture on a “missing child” ID  card.

Notice that I did not call the poem “all men are like children.” I called it “when men are like children.”

(you know it all)

absorbed in avocation;
wide, shallow geek in many ways.
omnivorously eating candy-apples
like a loving super-horse.

living in the two-dimensional.
whining when he doesn’t get his way.
perpetual adolescence, shallow and deeper;
always in an problematic place.

stomping, throwing, fighting and whining.
he does it on a fishing boat.
mirrors of his own emotions ―
like sipping weak tea, just for fun;

victorious warrior one minute.
directionally challenged for hours.
gripping obsessions. distracted.
never losing his spontaneous heart.

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Also posted in Theme Thursday -October-13-2011-fish.html

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