Thursday, 26 July 2007

War's good business, give your son (or daughter) ...

One of the anomalies of this war that has now gone on longer than WW II is that, though the majority of opinion is against it, there has been very little by way of protest.  In addition, the press has ignored this issue and the reason why and so the war drags on.  The reason is simple: there is no draft.  The people in the streets in the past were those whose skin was on the line or those related in someway to them.   Now the people who are putting their life on the line volunteered to do so.  Does that make it any less heinous or, in some perversity of logic, right?  No. 

So, too, there are, it seems, very few war poems.  At Lilliput, I see virtually none.  Does it bother me?  Yes.  Does life go on?  Sure.  For us, the privileged, the protected. 

For lack of other fodder, here's a poem by Wilfred Owen, with an outcome no less biblical for its divergence:

Parable of the Old Men and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave  the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretch\ed forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him.  Behold,
A ram caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son. . . .

 

 

And from the Lilliput archive, issue # 106, September 1999, before the war:

ASPIRATION

THERE IS ONLY

ONE SPACE

THE UNIVERSE

THERE IS ONLY

ONE FLAG

THE PRAYER FLAG

THERE IS ONLY

ONE MIND

THE BIG MIND

THE BIG BEAUTIFUL MIND

Joe Staunton

 

best, Don

 

Posted by donw714 at 06:42 EDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 31 July 2007 09:27 EDT

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