And Then They Came

July the fifth

and I scribe in his name

in ink and hope

and think I’ll go mad;

a whole month to wait

before we meet,

before we meet

on that dreadful day. 

This date has significance,

for him for me,

a sad anniversary of a time

when fate decreed

we both should be there

upon that street,

upon that street

when strangers came.

They came in ships

of brilliant gold,

the skies their sea

this Earth their shore

and how in awe we were

of tales they told

of how they would set us free,

release us from this hell of war.

We weary of the battle then

welcomed them with open arms,

these saviours from some distant world

who would quell our pain

and free us from our Earthly bonds

and they whispered in our ears their names

and their names are Yutha Nasia.

Twas some time ‘fore we realised

on some dreadful dawn

that although we, imperfect born,

deserved and so desired to live.

Yet Earth had changed

lost all humanity 

and man joined Yuthas’  battle cry:

Give the marred their rights 

and let them die!

Twas soon we lost all hope

as mankind slid down the slippery slope, 

and now we have no rights at all

and today we both received the call

and soon we shall be no more

as death waits for us at the door,

the door of Yutha Nasia.

Anna :o]

Victoria at dVerse asks us to consider time.  She writes:

Today, I invite you to consider calendars. You might want to look at your own Planner from 2013, choose a day and let it tell you a story. Or maybe, check out a wall calendar and let the art speak out to you (I’m looking at a little-known painting by van Gogh as I write this.) Consider time. What messages do you receive from the changing seasons? If you’re into astrology, perhaps you will find inspiration in one of the signs…your own or a loved one’s? How has the passing of the years (otherwise known as aging) affected or changed you?

I keep neither calendar nor diary as I just remember everything.  Well not strictly true as I forget birthdays and anniversaries’ – even forgot my son’s birthday twice – how bad is that.  But everything else I remember. 

So I just wrote a date and let it take me where it wanted – although I never expected where it took me.

I have great concerns regarding the slippery slope of what euthanasia has become and I may or may not have witnessed non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia.  Further reading can be found below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia  

http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/belgiums-culture-of-death.html

http://pjsaunders.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/belgiums-meteoric-rise-to-become.html

Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The euthanasia machine was created by Dr Philip Nitschke   

Garf

Watch me for a little while!

Viviparous, they so primitive,

entombed they are in womb of glass,

he smiles and shakes hard the jar

of funny little human things.

At five, a passel as a birthday gift,

Inquisitive

he had watched them breed and grow and thrive,

watched awe-struck as procreation

brought alive his little alien nation,

housed as they were in vivaria

that sat pulsating on his bedroom desk. 

He had marveled at their industriousness,

their efforts to achieve betterment,

yet this noble occupation bent/

thwarted by inherent base

need/desire of war,

a slaughter of its own innocents.

He sadly observed that they did not value life

yet this knowledge served his purpose well. 

No longer would the surplus feed

beasts that slithered belly down,

instead,

the budding entrepreneur would spice them dead,

create a pickle for discerning connoisseurs.

He shook the jar again, watched them swish

as if they had become some sad foetuses

awaiting birth from pickled death. 

He picked one out and with bated breath

awaited its deliciousness

and disappointed not he marveled at his own creation.

Big taste, big bank balance, he sighed happily,

Garf: quondam loser?  Yes – now bloody genius!

Anna :o]    

Björn at dVerse has us writing sci-fi.  The above is a re-write of a micro story (that lies in a now dormant blog) I wrote in May 2011, a re-write in the form of poetry.

I love sci-fi – well not the rubbish stuff – and read Isaac Asimov when a spotty teenager.    Loved watching the Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone and Dr Who.  I loved them because they scared me silly.  (I had a plan should a UFO land when I out alone – I would run head first into the nearest brick wall…!)

The micro story and thus the poem are based on the notion that this universe and this Earth on which we live, exists in some distant galaxies equivalent of an ant farm…

Image: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author: Piolinfax

Rejection

Were I not ensanguined I would bleed pity into your callous heart.

*

Blunt rejection implodes ego, hate blurs self-perceived kindheartedness

*

Excised heart lies cold upon the butchers slab, revenge keeps it beating.

*

Revenge best eaten cold, hell no; pray hard, there’s fire in my belly.

*

Belly full of you, I spill memories until I run on empty.

*

Empty, I am yesterday; tomorrow has no need for warm embrace.

Anna :o]

Gay at dVerse has us writing American Sentences, these an American haiku invented by Allen Ginsburg.  Each line/sentence consists of seventeen syllables and should tell a complete story.

Not certain if the above is what Ginsburg  or Gay had in mind…

Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author: Fragile_Emotion.jpg: Don from Murfreesboro, TN

To Those Who Would Dishonour the Dead

 Apologia Pro Poemate Meo

I, too, saw God through mud– 

The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

Merry it was to laugh there–
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

I, too, have dropped off fear–
Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear,
Past the entanglement where hopes lie strewn;

And witnessed exhultation–
Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,
Seraphic for an hour, though they were foul.

I have made fellowships–
Untold of happy lovers in old song.
For love is not the binding of fair lips
With the soft silk of eyes that look and long.

By joy, whose ribbon slips,–
But wound with war’s hard wire whose stakes are strong;
Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;
Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.

I have perceived much beauty
In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;
Heard music in the silentness of duty;
Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.

Nevertheless, except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
Whose world is but a trembling of a flare
And heaven but a highway for a shell,

You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears: You are not worth their merriment. 

Wilfred Owen

To Those Whow Would Dishonour the Dead

One single shot shattered fragile peace

and your country needs you,

needs you now,

needs you to spill your blood and guts on foreign soil.

There are empty places at the table,

lineage as broken as the beating hearts he left behind,

no progeny to bear his nose his chin his eyes. 

Do you remember him or does he lie forgotten?

There are those amongst us

who would have us turn our backs

against those sacrificial lambs that,

ripe for slaughter

fell to earth for king and country.

To you who wear proud

your badge of smug self-righteousness

I ask:

When they first come for the socialists, 
will you speak out?

Lest we forget;

know of those whose fallen bones

lie lost beneath the sod of foreign fields,

where poppies bleed in awful grief

and give gentle nod of reverence.

I will remember.

Anna

FIRST THEY CAME--

First they came for the communists,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then the came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller

Remembrance Day is a memorial day to remember members of the armed forces who died in the line of duty.  It is not a glorification of war; it is a day to honour the dead.

Please don’t politicise it.

Also remembered, all civilian causalities and all those who through the death of civilians and armed forces personal were never born.

Image: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author: Tijl Vercaemer from Gent, Flanders #Belgium)

There Will Be No Spring

There is an air of neighbourliness here;

it is a mere pretence, a sham.

We nod, exchange pleasantries,                        

share small talk as I walk the dog;

watch (and mention) his hard labour

as he  cuts a swathe through evergreen

and he seems a little distant now.

We live our solitary lives

preferring the comfort of our own potting sheds,

there is necessity of order here,

we choose what will live and bloom

or twist out and die. 

We have our sanctuaries’ our Edens’

guard ourselves against the possibilities of harm. 

We, victims of our own defences become a garden full of weeds.

We had talked some time ago;

he told me of his blight, proliferation of disease. 

He had hope then, an optimism. 

He would lend himself to those with greener fingers,

they would tend him and he would thrive again.

The seasons pass and he has a look of autumn,

a withering of summer. 

He tells me the laurel will not outlive the winter

and crestfallen his sad smile flutters to his feet.

Anna

MLM at Mindlovemisery has us trying our hand at prophecy.  Sadly the prophecy is that of a near neighbour and I fear he might be right in that he, the laurel will not outlive the winter…  Not quite sure the above is what MLM had in mind but after talking to my neighbour a few days ago i felt compelled to write of our discussion and I honestly think I did so to cope with my own felt inadequacy.

(Also shared with the good folk at Poets United)

Image: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Author: User:Burrows