Against War and War Propaganda in its Myriad Forms

Euphoric Hero Dysphoria

 

Each hero latched onto

in order to manufacture

more heroes, to pick up

more arms supplied by

‘allies’ whose industries

of arms and related items

(‘supplies ‘) make a killing

justified by the economic

trickle-down effect so bills

can be paid and consumer

items purchased as if good

conscience had anything

to do with that euphoric

hero dysphoria a president

or high command would urge

on would embody as bodies

on streets in trenches by churches

and where trees or even fields

of wheat grew as the seasons

still managed to function

until recently, until metaphors

once again fell into line,

rushed to serve death.

 

            John Kinsella

 

Another Poem In The Effort to Protect Julimar Forest From Mining

 

Silently Into the Sea of the Forest: Chalice’s Plans for Julimar Forest

 

‘And silently they crossed the threshold. And close by garden vines covered with green foliage were in full bloom, lifted high in air.’ 

            Argonautica (Book II)

 

 

Silently into the sea of the forest

 ‘soft’-tracked vehicles will creep,

no wheels to crush undergrowth

they hope in future to delete.

 

Silently into the sea of the forest,

gently gently off-track — no tyres

pressing their case, just metal expecting

what’s flattened to shoot back into place.

 

Silently into the sea of the forest

those drilling rigs are determined to go —

to reach down further than roots

and mirror the hollow of sky.

 

 

            John Kinsella

Anti-War Poem — Second Ode to Disarmament

Second Ode to Disarmament

Each order each line of command

each siege-besiege counterpoint,

a percussion of shelling and wounding.

 

Till the last body the last round,

the mincemeat slurry of nation and body,

of flesh and ideology, bird memory in a bunker.

 

To be unlived to invest in a living future

relegated when the time comes: the way

we talk in D minor at ease or under pressure.

 

Each order each line of command

each siege-besiege counterpoint,

a percussion of shelling and wounding.

 

War loves its clichés, its brutal

realities. ‘According to some sources’.

Doctors without borders sewing limbs together.

 

Till the last body the last round,

the mincemeat slurry of nation and body,

of flesh and ideology, bird memory in a bunker.

 

Where to gather seed in a resplendent season

of memory, where to look when the season is harsh.

Under the barrage the dawn chorus loses its way.

 

 

            John Kinsella