PooterGeek

dearieme

If you go into other people’s countries
and bomb them
they will bomb you.
And sometimes even if you don’t,
They will bomb you.
And perhaps instead Punjabis from Leeds
will bomb you
for the offence of letting them live
in a country that is
infinitely preferable to the homeland
that their families left. Ironic, eh?

Linda Grant

I’d love to have a go at this but not in front of Geroge.

Linda Grant

Actually, I’ll contribute this, which is a real poem by a real poet, it’s on the front of my website at the moment, while it’s being updated

The Diameter of the Bomb

By Yehuda Amichai

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.

And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world of the circle.

And I won’t even mention the howl of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making
a circle with no end and no God.

Jeremy Brown

I tried to have a little fun with this exercise, but somehow I lost my sense of humor – it’s just so infuriating. Anyway…

Dear Deserving Victim

If you go into other people’s countries
and hoard all their dough
they will burn your children.
You can tell them what you like
You can ask us “If you prick us do we not bleed?”
You can whine about the ‘six million’
But the rule remains:

If you try to forestall the race war
they will murder Sharon Tate
You can tell them what you like.
You can tell us the White album was not the Beatles’ best
You can tell us we are not the messiah
But the rule remains:

If you fail to keep your Burqa closed tight
they will throw acid in your face
You can tell them what you like
You can tell us you are a decent woman
You can beg us not to rape your daughters
But the rule remains:

If you go into other people’s counties
and organize their nigras
They will firebomb your churches
You can tell them what you like
You can tell us we are all children of God
You can beg us not to hang you from the nearest tree
But the rule remains:

If you poke your nose into a mass murderer’s business
and try to make them stop
they will murder you.

Judy

Do as we of the SWP, Respect and Hizb-ut-Tahrir say
Or else other people will bomb you
We wouldn’t dreaming of bombing you ourselves
But if you don’t do as we say
Other people will bomb you
And then you’ll be to blame
For not doing as we say
Won’t you?

Do as Osama bin Laden says
Or else you’ll get bombed
Do as Zarqawi says
Or some Irish woman will get her head chopped off
And then Michael Rosen will be able to write some doggerel saying
It’s all your fault anyway

Do as George Galloway says
Do as Seumas Milne says
Cos if you don’t
We wouldn’t dream of blowing
Men women black white christian muslims jews up on your tubes
But some well sassy international terror group will
Some group will organize some right on islamist young men
to blow them all apart
And then Michael Rosen will pretend to speak in the victims’ voices and say
It’s all your fault anyway, isn’t it?

Adriane

Roses come in root stock,
While Petunias are sold by seed.

You being a kaffir,
Is the only excuse I need.

mw

Kite Dreams

I was a child once, with dreams and a kite
Now, I am dust, blood
I live only in my mother’s cries
In time, perhaps, I too will become the oil
They so desire; that led them to vaporize
Me, civil society, hope, history

This was no eden, I confess
The hanging gardens long since faded
Into the prosaic plots of our lives
The government was stern, yet caring
They taught us of our past
And corrected our myriad faults, like
Solons of the two rivers
They cried with us, for us
It hurt them too, but it paled next to our
 Shame

My father left, to be with them -
We never spoke of it, though our hearts
Burned with pride - he was in a better place
A building in Firdos square with AC -
He probably drove a toyota, and traveled
The length of our great land, dispensing
Candy, instruction, joy at the miracle of living
He would protect us all from the northern menace
Whose souls had long since melted into hate
Who had forfeited the crescent for the star

Then, They came; an irruption of confusion
In a world of absolutes. Could they not see
Past my skin?
Past the rhetoric of their puppeteers?
I lived only for my kite, which our Dear Father
Gave to me - his face beaming,
His moustache
His hat
The spirit of an age just unfolding
I had a part to play
I was a threat

Anonymous

If MW can go twice I’ll share the gift of my poetry a second time too. Is that OK? This one is free-style:

* * *

AND WHAT DID SADDAM DO

You claim to bring democracy and social justice
but before your aluminum war owls
swooped down on our nursery schools, our hospitals
of pregancy, our sylvan fields of kite flying…
we had an election whose percent was one hundred, whilst you
had an election of very small turnout, turnout, turnout…

We had a consti(damn you)tution
you bastards of strumpet-mother crusade!

We had a socialist system sired by father Saddam
before you picked at his teeth with your steely quills
and plucked from his swirly beardhairs that which your orifices of hegemonous vision contrived to see as nitty and undesirable.

And are we, I really have to wonder,
our children, our mothers, our very souls…
little more than nits
for your too too unpigmented fingers to pick at?

For totally no reason your paint of doom
covered over our windows of peace.

And what did Saddam do, Saddam do, Saddam do…
That could have been so bad, so bad, so bad?

For what is peace to you
who eat your McDonalds, who launch your Spears of Brittany,
who must have your precious machine oils,
and then turn around and
– O foul murderous troglodytes –
bite off the heads of our serenity
and spit them
into the craven spitoons of Empire.

And, I ask the fiery wind,
What did Saddam do?
What did he do, did he do, did he, do, do, do?

Hampster Squared aged 19 and three quarters

Not In My Name

When I heard I bought the t’shirt
‘Cos I thought I’d have my say
Take no action save for marching
For I can see no other way

Now look I was right all along
See what you idiots did
By invading all these countries
You’ve gone and blown the lid

All these Muslim chaps they hate us now
Though all my friends and I are nice
I’m sure that if you let them be
They’d see it in a trice

I didn’t want their children killed
I disagreed with all my might
For oil and greed the only cause
So yeah, look, I’m alright

Not in my name - I distance myself
The left speak eloquently for me
If I say all these things myself
They only will ignore me

My one true voice stands clear and loud
At least inside my head
Our bombed victims correspond
To the number of Muslims dead

And so, should bombers come my way
I’d like to make it clear
The writing on the wall y’see
It says
I woz not ‘ere (honest guv, I didn’t want them to do it)

ps:
I do not like them Trot I am
I do not like this bloggers’ spam

Paul

CELEBRITIES FOR PEACE

We speak for all the world of Art,
We bare our breasts, our bleeding hearts,
We give our all, it’s how we live,
Bear witness as we give and give!
Though we, it’s true, have for a time
Obscure been, is it a crime
To voice all your inchoate fears?
( And maybe just boost our careers )
You common folk have not the skill,
Our vision, passion, ego, will,
To say the things that must be said
When heart is king and not the head.
From stage, from screen, from studio’s glare
Admire our courage as we dare
Proclaim what we know is the truth –
No need for us to weigh the proof,
Which anyway is not to hand,
But hidden in those far off sands,
That fractious, violent Middle East
Where our albums sell the least,
Where our books are rarely bought,
And unlike here, our plays not taught
In schools, whose pupils learn instead
The Fear of God, the tyrant’s dread.
It’s awful, but what can we say?
It is so very far away…
That’s why instead our words are hurled
At those who lead the Western World,
The boring men in boring ties,
The baby killers with their lies,
The men in suits with thinning hair,
Who are so deeply, truly square,
By whom we seem so young and fit
( Though plastic surgery helps a bit! )
Their lust for oil’s the biggest fact;
Trust me, because I sing and act..
Bravely we will oppose this war,
Protected by the rule of law
Of course, so we need have no fear
Of secret police and spending years
In some forgotten prison cell;
Thank God – we’ve CDs still to sell,
Reviews to write for one another,
Next year’s Celebrity Big Brother..
We care, that’s why we take this stance
And also for this final chance
To put behind the things we did
When our careers were on the skids;
The “Hello” wedding and of course,
The subsequent messy divorce,
The starlet with the broken heart,
The cheap motel, expensive tart,
That unlawful carnal knowledge,
Arrested in that public “cottage”,
The drunken slurring at the BAFTA,
Forgive us because from hereafter
We fight as we’re the ones that care,
Self appointed, upon the air.
It’s true, our knowledge’s rather slight,
But God! – just see those studio lights!

Captain Thrice

The Evils of Freedom

He wants to spread the evils of freedomTo foreigners who simply do not need ‘em

He wants to give most everybody SARSAnd build a branch of Starbucks out on Mars

He claims that we are all apologistsJust coz we understand the â€œterrorists”

And he’s the one who caused that damn tsunamiWith the movements of his globalising army

If only he would do just what they sayThe militants would surely go away

So come on, everybodyIt’s time to use your noodle:Bush wants their oilHe wants their soilHe wants the whole kaboodle

He’s the one who sends our boys to dieFighting for a Presidential lie

He wants to build MacDonalds on the MoonAnd globalise Wollundry Lagoon

Who is he to try and run their lives?And tell them to be nice to all their wives?

He wants to make the world eat GM riceCoz he thinks a bunch of mutants would be nice

And it’s he who causes all the global warmingWith his fighter/bomber jet-planes all a-swarming

So come on, everybodyIt’s time to use your noodle:Bush wants their oilHe wants their soilAnd Blair is just his poodle