Whoops .. the ‘Go Dog Go Cafe’ reblog action didn’t work again, so here is a copy & paste version of my article on GDGC ...

During the last 2 weeks I have posted a few poems about the futility of war … I’m not very accomplished at writing about the wars of the world, I get far too angry and confused to write something sensible, but this is a poem I wrote about my recollections of the “Gulf War” in 1990.

Return the Bullets

The mind awakens to secret cannons shattering my bed

All the violence of the worlds pounding inside my head

The killing and the maiming of all the innocents who fled

What happens when all the little lambs are slaughtered?

When the peoples of all religions and creed are dead

And we cannot return the murdering bullets back into the barrel

I am afraid

The backyard stairway is far too steep to climb

The handrails are way out of reach to find

And the public change-room windows are covered with bars

Now encircling the city hall, the security backdoor is ajar

Entering the marble aisle, the White room appears vacant

And guileful leaders have run, leaving a chasm of gloomy dark

I am wandering

Where to go, the healing house is full of ugly holes

The citizens cowering in shadows behind splintered lighting poles

And the crumbling streets are awash with rivers of leftover blood

Now the warring bosses have to fight amongst themselves

Throwing poison pens and paper darts at each other

Niether bruised nor battered, using ivory towers as cover

I am terrified

The dusty mushroom cloud slowly settles on the barren ground

With sands of distant lands, shifting into every nook and cranny

We need the good Doctor, to help us cure these alien scourges

And foreigners arriving upon waves of our neighbouring seas

The deathly TV images, wrongly implanted for all to see

As the press only gossip and drivel with selfish glee

I am stupefied

The guns of freedom lands haven’t even stopped the cull

Death to friends or foe, no matter, to the rulers from above

Their only rules, the poor and weak to be kept totally downtrodden

One day the surviving meek shall inherit their radioactive dirt

The rich will feast upon their own contaminated bread

But we will never return the murdering bullets back into the barrel 

Ivor Steven (c) May 2021