Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Patricia D'Alessandro
78 years old
Sacramento, CA
Poet, artist, photographer, life-long peace advocate, facilitator/Creative Writing Workshop for Wellspring Women's Center, published in literary journals & newspapers in Naples, Paris, Berlin, and across the USA. Poetry has been interpreted through dance in Berlin and Sacramento. California Writer's Award l976, Honorable Mention Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest l994, Artist Embassy International Awards 1997, 2001 and 2002. Graduate with BS/Human Relations and Organizational Behavior, Honorable Mention for Portfolio Presentation
VILLANELLE FOR ALL OUR SONS
What no one admits, what no one wants to hear, is precisely that which has to be repeated all the more. Goethe
Incisions on black marble seal our bonds to veterans who fell in "syndrome's" way No war is worth the sacrifice of sons.
Our faces mirrored deep within fierce calm aesthetic shock to tethered pain convey incisions on black marble seal our bonds.
Lost voices beg to pound all guns to none "like sweet bells jangled, out of tune"* they play No war is worth the sacrifice of sons.
Admit the folly that was Vietnam and in warm Spirit's Light lift Death to Day Incisions on black marble seal our bonds.
Redeem the Peace for valor and beyond These names that wail for all to kneel and pray No war is worth the sacrifice of sons.
"Mere puffs of wind"** brave sons of Absalom abhor the past, how dare we look away Incisions on black marble seal our bonds No war is worth the sacrifice of sons.
Patricia D'Alessandro
Published in Call & Response, East Bootleg West, Sacramento, CA 1993 l. William Shakespeare 2. Psalm 144 - War Hymn
All My Sons & Daughters
Every time I travel south of San Francisco, and landscape's green evolves into a mountain of white crosses where trees and flowers used to bloom in colorful profusion, I visualize the homes that might have been for veterans of all the wars now homeless, and the memory disturbs my dulled complacency, thinking of the parents of all these young who died for causes no one understood except the Pentagon, who only went to war because they had to, so that now the litanies of wars seem inappropriate for we have buried heroes here and all are wasted to this earth beneath these rows of crosses, yet
simple flowers bloom in spite of everything
on this shroud of evergreen near the City of Saint Francis where voices scim the air through a silence no cadenza can completely camouflage rising from this landscape, where SPIRITUS GLADIUS rend their sacred songs
a cappella
doloroso. Patricia D'Alessandro Copyright 1995
Anti-War Notations
The voice of the poet in a time of war splinters through shrapnel harvested in wounds
Love for humanity is not a sin. Preparing for war is.
Death rattles in the throat of soldiers begging for peace and love.
The trunk of a tree tells a story of sadness laden with blood of warriors
Bleeding ankles in the oil fields of Iraq beg for bandages and transfusions. Patricia D'Alessandro 2003
November 11, 2003
Mothers of the fallen young, be brave and tell appalling stories of your dead whose cries still echo from their frozen bed on land and sea their voices clamor long for lives they forfeited were meant to live and not a life that Death commands they give.
When will their agony be registered as wrong? Defy those forces who refuse to see that Death is not a trade for Liberty for Death's demands are now a mockery.
The future lies within the hearts of all who view the Light through Peace's protocol -
". . . the time has come the walrus said to speak of many things of lies and games and ravages of presidents and kings."
We all are mothers of our fallen young and first to ask why we must never tell of wasted youth whose cries still rise from land and sea and clamor long -
"Each human's life is sacred, meant to live and not a number war records ad lib".
The world, now spinning fast toward entropy, Demands a time for tea and empathy.
