Lately 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 rather long 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 amonst 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 will never return the murdering bullets back into the barrel 

Ivor Steven (c) Sept 2023