Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.

Cam Black

Remembrance Day

I miss you old man
As I sit here remembering the day we met
Right here at the bar
The bar we’ve met at every year since
Recognising something in each other
That brought us together

There we were old man
Remembering together
As you do on days such as that
Such as this
Fresh back from the parade
Drinking together
A generation apart
Closer than many could be

You told me of yours
I told you of mine

You spoke of trenches
Of comradeship
Of that feeling you all had
The patriotic call
The belief in what you were doing
When it began

And then you spoke of horror
Of bodies
Of bloodstained mud
Of mortar fire and midnight rifles
Of disease and cold

You spoke of disillusionment
And then of comfort taken
In bonds made between those that were there
And the feeling beneath
That of all the wrong that was done
It was done for the greater good

And I envied you that conviction
That comfort
As I told you of fear
Of hot jungle rain
Of confusion
Of silent death creeping through trees

I told you of times with no comfort
No sense of right and wrong
Just alive
And not

And there were things I didn’t tell you
Though I know you no doubt knew
And I thank you for not asking
For allowing me not to speak

Of villages destroyed
Out of suspicion
Or of children shot
Out of fear

And of…

But I looked for you today old man
Unsure if this year would be the one
Knowing your time would come some day
As they all do
Realising I had hoped it would be later

Always later

And I miss you this year old man
But still, here I sit
A glass of neat whisky next to mine on the bar
And I’m listening to the world change again
Hearing people make that call again
Wondering what tomorrow will look like

I miss you old man
Old friend
But it’s possible I might see you again
Sooner than either would have hoped

Evaluation

Picture if you will a photo
A photo of a town
A damaged, war torn town
Unrecognisable from any other
This town could be any one of thousands
And probably is

Picture in the centre, filling much of the frame
A building, a house
Broken, falling down
Its original design lost in the aftermath
Of a bomb, or bombs
Dropped by an enemy
The inhabitants had never met

Now picture in the foreground
Poking from out the rubble
A small hand, a forearm
Broken
The colour of the skin indeterminate
Obscured by blood and dust staining its surface
The face of the child unrecognisable
Beneath the debris
This child could be any child
Of any age
Of any gender
Of any race
But one child among millions

Picture all this, if you will
And then call this picture ‘price tag’
For this we are told is the price of freedom
This the price of peace
The death of children
Ours, theirs
Yours
But what price the life of this child

What price this child

And who decides this price of peace

A country whose own children fight
In an army that will kill more of them itself
Through miscalculation
Equipment failure
And human error
Than the enemy will ever see
And their names, too, will become numbers
Tabulation of acceptable loss
But one more price
In the fight for that we cannot win
Through war

But what price the life of this child
And do they think us so unwilling to pay it
That we would not forgo a meal to see once more his smile
That we would not risk the insecurity
Of reducing a military
That cannot protect us
To see her play again
Of limiting a deterrent that does not deter
To hear them all laugh again

But murder is nothing new
War is nothing new
It is a part of us
And has been for as long as our races can remember
And longer
Since man first learned that by bending his knuckles
Curling the tips of his fingers into his palm
He could turn the end of his arm into a club

And no country is without its evils
Its injustice
Its closet full of skeletons
For all colonisation is genocide
All succession, each claim to territorial rights
Is bloodshed
And all conflict gives death to those
Who did not chose the fight

But all I can ask is
What price the life of this child
This life
This potentiality unrealised
Never to run again
Play again
Never to grow
And laugh
And know love

This life extinguished
For reasons not adequately explained
Justified

Or any fault of this young corpse
Lying among the rubble
Its home has now become

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