This is a poem for those who cannot be at the protests
This is a walking poem,
not a marching poem.
It is a poem for all those
who cannot be there in person
to walk alongside others
to show support for those suffering
in Gaza, and it’s a poem
for all those people
who find it overwhelming
to be in public, especially
in large groups of people
even if they’d like to show
kinship and participate
in a mass public display
of empathy, in a protest
against the military
state, against the arms trade
and the occupation
of Palestinian lands.
It is for those who would
be there if they could,
but are unwell, or can’t get there,
or have others relying
on them to stay close.
This is a walking poem.
This is not a marching poem
because marching can take
on rhythms that are martial,
though such marching
peaceful marching
counters the martial.
So these marches
have their own poems.
Walking together creates
a circuit of collective
energy that illuminates
and draws others to its
aura without burning them.
Light that is atmospheric
and earthed. That resonates.
It is resolved and committed
and sensitised to the pain
of those on whose behalf
the walking together
is being conducted.
This poem is for those
who can’t be there,
and its lines walk together
and as one, even if it’s
to its own step and to the steps
of all those there on the ground.
This poem is for those
who can’t walk
together on the day
but want to have it known
that they care as deeply.
John Kinsella
14/5/2024
To Vice-Chancellors and Board Members of Australian Universities
I wish to:
1. Support the absolute right for students to protest/camp etc. peacefully on university campuses.
2. Denounce the genocide being enacted by the Israeli military in Gaza. Further, to note the ongoing systemic oppression and neo-colonialism enacted by Israel’s government, military and settler-culture.
3. I wish to affirm universal human rights.
4. Speaking from a pacifist position that rejects all forms of violence, I wish to restate my many decades-long objection to weapons production (for anyone anywhere), the military in all its forms, and places of learning being used directly or indirectly for these purposes. It is abhorrent that universities have so deeply connected themselves with ‘defence’ — an industry of death.
5. Speak against any form of support for such violence.
6. Speak in support of diverse communities across the globe that respect each other, share space and materials, and are mutually supporting.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Emeritus Professor John Kinsella, poet, environmentalist, peace activist and writer
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
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
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
