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

 

All Refugees Are Refugees

 

Rifuĝinto

 

A child in front of a tank

is a child in front of a tank;

a parent between a soldier

and a child is a parent

between a soldier

and a child;

a frightened, hungry

and at-risk person

is a frightened, hungry

and at-risk person;

weather against the skin

is weather against the skin;

bullets, shrapnel and flame

will burn any victim the same;

seeing the sky filled with drones

rather than birds is seeing

the sky filled with drones

rather than birds; the loss

of shelter and no longer

knowing what you’re

likely doing tomorrow

is disarray regardless

of where birth papers

were signed; a student

who studies for tomorrow

knows when tomorrow

has been taken away —

it is more than a learning curve;

the sun on the snow

the rain on the earth

the missiles and bombs,

the recoil of collapsing buildings;

a child in front of a tank

is a child in front of a tank.

 

 

            John Kinsella

Another Pacifist Poem

 Battle is Not Spectacle It’s a Catastrophe

 

‘Nor did anyone note with care that it was the same island; nor in the night did the Doliones clearly perceive that the heroes were returning; but they deemed that Pelasgian war-men of the Macrians had landed. Therefore they donned their armour and raised their hands against them. And with clashing of ashen spears and shields they fell on each other, like the swift rush of fire which falls on dry brushwood and rears its crest; and the din of battle, terrible and furious, fell upon the people of the Doliones.’

            (from The Argonautica Book 1, trans R. C. Seaton, 1912)

 

 

Blown back by the winds of our making,

they clash with enemies conjured

 

from darkness. Dawn will show bloody

truisms — neighbour slaying neighbour,

 

or people who might have been friends

slaughtering under orders. On the beaches

 

of their imaginations, the dead drift

through the tyrant’s dream — part smog,

 

part oil, part bloody earth, and the strange

intangible nature of torn flesh. War

 

laps at the cold waters of the summer

resorts. Weapons are made to be used.

 

The dying are heard in and around

the cities and people can only lament

 

while still living, streaming away or sheltering

in underground rail stations, masked

 

against the pandemic. The clash — rigor

mortis of empire-craving, and the media’s

 

feeding frenzy, networks embedding

to bring more than images to screens,

 

to frenzy around violence then regret

the cascading losses. And the news

 

that no epic poet could contrive to embellish

the story — the invading army has taken

 

Chernobyl, concrete cradle of unbirth,

monument to spectres that fall across borders,

 

called with impunity and reassurance,

summoned from its eternal sleeplessness,

 

full of self-praise as the reactor core

maintains its rage. And now its makers

 

have it back in their care. Sarcophagus.

Strategies of the exclusion zone. A tree

 

shivers, a bird is dead before it can land,

barely symbolic among seemingly

 

familiar terrain. Terrible. Fell. Furious.

 

 

            John Kinsella

 

 

In Full Support of Ukraine and Against Violence On EVERY Level

I condemn the invasion of Ukraine by the military forces of the Kremlin and the tyrant Putin. This horrendous abuse of human rights and human dignity is deplorable on every level. As a committed pacifist, I firmly believe that non-violent resistance and protest are the most effective way of countering this abuse of life. Meeting violence with violence will mean more violence, more suffering. Total and utter refusal to do what the militarists demand is, to my mind, the only effective answer. 

I send my support and solidarity to all those in Ukraine who are under attack or under threat. I also send my support to those peace protesters in Russia who face arrest with their every objection and refusal to be part of a tyrant-driven Kremlin agenda of extending power and occupying country in order to enhance imperial obsessions. To the people peacefully resisting this, you are not and never will be forgotten. We are with you.

Taking up arms only means more death and increases the wealth of military profiteers. I am disgusted by Germany breaking its own 'restraints' to supply weapons to the conflict (though this is unsurprising, given Germany is an exporter of arms), and also by Australia for doing the same (also unsurprising, given it's a nation working hard to increase its role and influence in the world armaments trade). This is, of course, part of the increasingly right-wing urges of a right-wing Federal government that aims to project itself into global politics as a 'middle ranking power'. The disgraceful AUKUS pact, the drive for nuclear-powered submarines, the push to make the Australian military 'less woke', and the increasing push for military-related activities in Australian universities, are all part of this. 

The decision to send 'lethal aid' (an oxymoron if ever there was one) to Ukraine is part of the death cultism of right-wingism. The Russian power-elite shares a similar worldview, but with a 'stronger' military behind it. Violence leads to more violence. Send humanitarian aid in every way possible; aid should be life-affirming and not death-making in nature and intent. Peaceful aid will mean the preservation of life. 

Lethal Aid

 

There’s no point even placing

scare quotes around this.

In the frenzy for death to show

resolve where death is,

 

the Australian government

will send its devices of death

into the killzones, will feed

death so when death

 

comes to its end, a supplied

by Australia logo will light

up the graves, a small

if not discreet claim,

 

a reminder of assistance

rendered, of death’s compassion

for death. The invaders

will recognise it as kin

 

to their own way of thinking.

An aid to memory, of aid rendered.

 

 

            John Kinsella