A Visit to 'Poets Against The War' & 'YONIP!'

I haven't visited Poets Against The War in awhile, too busy with all the other information, actions, news, work, etc. etc. etc.. Thanks to Dave, over at After Downing Street, for jarring my memory and posting the following Poems there. You should all take a visit to Poets Against The War, there's a Wealth of insightful poetry as well as heartfelt thoughts, just what good poetry is supposed to be about, Real Feelings and Real Reality!


The bottom poem can be found at YONIP! Yes, Observe National Independence & Peace

THE PHILIPPINE PEACE & SOVEREIGNTY WEBSITE

I just visited the YONIP!, what a Great Graphic, site and there's a wealth of information there for anyone who is interested. I only visited a small portion and plan to return.

After a brief history of Poets Against The War the Poems

Short History of Poets Against War

In late January 2003, in response to an invitation to a symposium by Laura Bush to celebrate "Poetry and the American Voice," Sam Hamill declined; a longtime pacifist, he could not in good faith visit the White House following the recent news of George W. Bush's plan for a unilateral "Shock and Awe" attack on Iraq. Instead, he asked about 50 fellow poets to "reconstitute a Poets Against the War movement like the one organized to speak out against the war in Vietnam...to speak up for the conscience of our country and lend your names to our petition against this war” by submitting poems of protest that he would send to the White House. When 1,500 poets responded within four days, this web site was created as a means of handling the enormous, unexpected response.
Since then, the "accidental groundswell" grew to include poets from around the world. There are presently more than 20,000 poems in this, the largest poetry anthology ever published. Poems from Poets Against War have been presented in person, by invitation, to several representatives of the U.S. Congress; many of them have since been introduced into the Congressional Record.

The Children of Iraq Have Names
By David Krieger
The children of Iraq have names.
They are not the nameless ones.
The children of Iraq have faces.
They are not the faceless ones.
The children of Iraq do not wear Saddam’s face.
They each have their own face.
The children of Iraq have names.
They are not all called Saddam Hussein.
The children of Iraq have hearts.
They are not the heartless ones.
The children of Iraq have dreams.
They are not the dreamless ones.
The children of Iraq have hearts that pound.
They are not meant to be statistics of war.
The children of Iraq have smiles.
They are not the sullen ones.
The children of Iraq have twinkling eyes.
They are quick and lively with their laughter.
The children of Iraq have hopes.
They are not the hopeless ones.
The children of Iraq have fears.
They are not the fearless ones.
The children of Iraq have names.
Their names are not collateral damage.
What do you call the children of Iraq?
Call them Omar, Mohamed, Fahad.
Call them Marwa and Tiba.
Call them by their names.
But never call them statistics of war.
Never call them collateral damage.

Haditha!
By Jim Bush
Haditha!
Haditha!
Take the name between your teeth
And hold it there!
Let the name dissolve in your mouth
If you can!
Feel the razor edges of the letters
With your tongue!
Feel the pain...
And taste the blood!
Hear the screams!
Do you hear the screams?
The ghosts of My Lai
Are conjured up!
And they accuse:
You have learned nothing!
You have learned nothing...
Except...
How to make excuses...
For your crimes!
Haditha!
Take the body of that child
And tuck into your shirt...
Right about where you heart should be!
Tuck in...
Guts and all!
Feel it's, still warm, blood...
Trickle down you legs!
Is that a whimper you hear?
Who's whimper is it?
The baby's?
The mother's?
Your own?
Haditha!
The place where the gutters...
Run red!
And the red...
Cradles cigarettes...
Thrown by boy Marines...
Who have just traded their souls...
For a moment's angry release!
Haditha!
Proof, that we are not...
Who we say we are!
Confirmation, that we cannot kill...
Our way into heaven!
Testimony, that freedom cannot...
Be bought at the barrel of a gun!
Witness, to the truth...
That this war of lies...
Cannot be won!
Haditha!

How Does One Tell Them?
By Jim Bush
How does one talk to them?
Laying there, so proud, with various wounds
And talking the same language as their forebears:
"I did it so my children won't have to"
How does one argue with this?
How does one say,
"But our children will have to"
"They always have"?
How do we tell them the other history?
That America was built on the myth of freedom
And, in order to grow, it took freedom away
From Africans, Indians, and the working poor from around the world?
How does one tell the parents of the dead
That their son or daughter died for the free enterprise of some
Not for the free expression
Of life's longing for happiness by the many?
How does one tell them that the threat from the outside
Is matched by the threat from within?
That our own leaders are willing to use the people's honor and treasure
To serve their own selfish ends?
How does one tell them that it is our own corruptibility
That enables men of hubris and ill will
To dazzle and pacify us with 'bread and circuses'
And false hope for a better life that will never be?
How does one tell them in a way that does not anger?
In a way that they will listen
In a way that they will see
That being an American means more than buying and selling?
How does one tell them
That the enemy are not really the Saddams, Osamas, Castros, or Kims
But our greed and their need
That make them hate us so?
How does one tell them that America's success and survival
Depends not on the power of Rome or the legacy of Greece
But the understanding and compassion
Of a Chief Seattle, Reverend King, or Woody Guthrie?
How does one tell them that Jesus
Did not come to save us from the death of the body
But from the death of the soul
In a world that is in danger of forgetting how to love?
How does one tell them?

U.S. Air Strikes
By Shadab Zeest Hashmi
In the four minutes
it took me to mince the cloves,
dump the tea leaves
in the rose bush,
and soap the carafe,
a whole city was lost.
There were feet still in school shoes,
limp flesh singing into satchels,
clinging to a post, a shattered clock.
The children, if not orphaned,
were purpled beyond recognition.
Orders had been carried down,
one signal igniting another.
And a man had let a deafening rhapsody
guide his young hand to drop
a five hundred pound bomb
on a mosque.
Just when I finished rinsing the carafe,
a whole city was under cement dust and smoke,
and I thought I heard screaming behind walls of fire
in the kettle’s sharp whistle,
just when I added the cloves,
the last green lime.

Shada Zeest Hashmi is originally from Pakistan. Her poems have been published in New Millenium Writings, Hubbub, The Bitter Oleander, Poetry Conspiracy and will appear in the forthcoming anthology Risen from the East. She is the editor of the annual Magee Park Poets Anthology.

WORSE THAN THE WAR
By David Krieger
Worse than the war, the endless, senseless war,
Worse than the lies leading to the war,
Worse than the countless deaths and injuries,
Worse than hiding the coffins and not attending funerals,
Worse than the flouting of international law,
Worse than the torture at Abu Ghraib prison,
Worse than the corruption of young soldiers,
Worse than undermining our collective sense of decency,
Worse than the arrogance, smugness and swagger,
Worse than our loss of credibility in the world,
Worse than the loss of our liberties,
Worse than learning nothing from the past,
Worse than destroying the future,
Worse than the incredible stupidity of it all,
Worse than all of these,
As if they were not enough for one war or country or lifetime,
Is the silence, the resounding silence, of good Americans.