Lubeck , March 28, 1942 – Palm Sunday.

Lubeck , March 28, 1942 – Palm Sunday.

Hours before the bells of London rang for the blessing

of the palms, the bombers arrived over Lubeck,

a tinder town tied up in the twines of the river Trave,

and blew it to bits from the cathedral to St Marys.

God wasn’t a Nazi and Lubeck wasn’t on the front line;

it was war; anything goes, morality first.

And that’s what the broken bells of St Mary’s are saying still,

though they lost their tongues, their message is plain. 

Gung Ho Politics Does This

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable.”

U.S. historian Howard Zinn 

(video uploaded from Alejandro Salas Munoz channel on Youtube)

Another Perversion

Man-made

 

 

One shot

and the lights go out

down the street,

through the town, country,

world;

all that fits so easily inside a head. 

 

Now,

tipped slightly upward

in a hardened glob of brain tissue,

a beautifully sculpted,

aerodynamically perfect,

bright, shiny bullet.

Jesus The Aviator

Jesus the fighter pilot

has served in Iraq and Afghanistan:

6,000 flight hours; 1,800 combat hours. 

Described as cool-headed, aggressive;

when asked for his opinion, he says

he backs America all the way. 

The much decorated F-18 pilot claims

he’s come a long way, his teachings are smarter;

“follow the dollar gospel” he says,

  “In God We Trust”.

Gassed

In 1919 John Singer Sargent completed a large scale oil painting, Gassed. A line of First World War British soldiers, blinded by mustard gas, is led through a sea of bodies to a first aid station. The scene is appalling, and as convincing an argument for the barbarity of war as any. It is strongly reminiscent of Wilfred Owens’ Dulce Et Decorum Est:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
 

 

 

I found this video of the painting on Youtube. The camera picks out the detail in the painting very well, and helps to convey the horror of it all. Thanks to denise4peace on Youtube  for this.

Group Photograph After The War

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The Disaster of War

I get a lot of inspiration from photographs, particularly those that relate to human tragedies; and of these none have moved me more than Don McCullin’s work.
This photograph exemplifies my point. This soldier: his pockets pilfered, a trail of personnel items strewn on the ground. A family destroyed, their photographs scattered; the ruination of lives unimportant, the girl in the photograph just a child. All that is important to the assailants: pilfered. There is no glory in war.



Soldier


Shot crossing a wasteground;
they left him,
pockets pilfered,
staring beyond all wars;

a trail of photographs
and letters running from him
like a congealed flow
of memories.