No Time for Poetry
Not many were fighting like when you erupted,
You took cover behind those walls,
The defunct enemy you were confronting.
What’s the point of negotiation when all
We receive is provocation upon provocation
No! This is not going to make us fall!
And now we’re stepping... » read this article
Men of war,
Enemies to love and peace
Lovers to angels of death.
Turning our green fields to seas of blood
Leaving no safe sanctuary.
We are widows and widowers;
We are orphans and sojourners.
What have you done?
Snatching suckling babies
From suckling mothers;
Turning their milk dry.
Men... » read this article
Mankh (Walter E. Harris III). Axis of Logic. , Axis of Logic
Editor's Note: We bring our original 2008 publication of Mankh's poem back to celebrate the extraordinary announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize is being given to Barack Obama, even as he bombs innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Any questions you may have ever had about the credibility of the Norwegian Nobel... » read this article
Voices from The Dead
Quietly we lie, scattered across the land
separated from our comrades in battle,
returned home in a pre-paid coffin
draped by an American flag,
and put to rest in a hometown plot.
We are the dead.
They told us that we would be heroes
fighting for... » read this article
SO LONG!
Sufi, my Moslem friend
Let's pretend
that the world is a long poem
with Quarter-tones and tambourines,
Whirling children, women and gentlemen.
Sufi, my Moslem friend,
Let's pretend
and turn gold into dust,
tears into silver streams,
thoughts into frozen mountains
every meaningful gestures
into an... » read this article
Ah, lowly objects of mundane human existence, forever condemned to carry on your backs the weight of the world, this ode is to you. Because of you we tenderfeet are able to trudge through burning deserts and freezing slush. We slap you upon the pavements of great metropolises and quiet... » read this article
Wade Kane, Vietnam Combat Veteran , Axis of Logic exclusive
This thought about war came to me today on news about other nations around the world seeking to rein in aggression by the USA.
My thought was about using the last stanza of W.H. Auden's poem "Oh What is That Sound" for a letter to friends. While looking for... » read this article
Judith Moriarty (patience - photos: requires few seconds to load) , Axis of Logic
Originally published on Axis of Logic on May 8, 2007.
There is a great hue and cry over the May Day demonstrations in Los Angeles (legitimate) that saw the LAPD in their military gear - assaulting mostly Mexican immigrants. Nobody should suffer brutalization by the police.This has been given a... » read this article
The Canaanites pounded wheat and baked bread on me.
The children of Abraham carried me to the Temple of Prayer and I became a Wailing Wall.
Then came the Romans and the Hellenized Jews put me in a flower garden where they drank wine and expounded on the virtues of... » read this article
Cartilage and Steel
(Children of Iraq)
Youth, soft in their cartilage,
sleep beside Kalashnikovs;
escapees of consciousness
and bloody killing fields.
Daylight bursts blade sharp,
and lunges for the shadows
where innocent children hide.
It calls them, name by name,
Each day, fewer answer.
- Linda C. Straub
January 2007... » read this article
It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."
-unnamed US major as quoted
by Peter Arnett, Feb 7, 1968
America as the Village of Ben Tre
First came carpet bomb wire-taps to soften us up
before Napalm, today's water-boarding
(a Khmer Rouge torture loved by... » read this article
Cortez The Killer
He came dancing across the water
With his galleons and guns
Looking for the new world
In that palace in the sun.
On the shore lay Montezuma
With his coca leaves and pearls
In his halls he often wondered
With the secrets of the worlds.
And his... » read this article
Guantanamo
Always a long-shot for the public's ticket -
a tortured, sub-titled script
never likely to be an academy favourite.
The establishment remake: stripped bare
pasted, slapped on the good & evil billboard.
For those who like a scare, but the good guys win.
In the end no jury requested.... » read this article
And when you said, Mr Clauswitz
War is politics by another means,
you gave
to something destined to fall
bloodied, and come limping back,
an equal footing,
a legitimate feel
to that which is nothing but
a failure of the politic;
a failure of the patience; of the memory;
of... » read this article
IF ON THAT FIRST DAY
If on that first day
Of shock and awe
When we sat well back
In our armchairs, lit
The blue touch-paper;
If on that first hot day
As aqua-eyed Marines
Trespassed, watchful
On unfamiliar sand
A million miles from
Big Sur,
On a... » read this article
A BEAUTIFUL DAY
What a beautiful day.
Off coast, seabirds are swirling in a half mile circle catching fish like crazy.
Pelicans punctuate the situation here and there with their spectacular plunges.
Under the surface a massive ball of fish is being chased by hungry seals.
Hungry seals are being... » read this article
This Night in Fallujah: Lailat Al Qadr in Ramadan
Tonight, in Fallujah
We wait
For the known
For the follow-up
To the fighter planes
To the rockets
To the long days of shelling
To the depleted uranium killing us slowly,
We wait
To see their tanks
Their tanks will come... » read this article