A PLEA FOR PEACE:

A PROTEST AGAINST WAR

INTRODUCTION

This is a plea for peace, a protest against war on Iraq, against other “on-going wars”, against the destruction of peace.

This is a group poem, made up of voices from poets of several countries around the world, asking for an end to this war: the world’s plea for peace. We cannot let this war happen; we cannot let this mass murder of our innocent soldiers of several countries and innocent civilians of Iraq, and of the world, suffer with the greed and insanity of some leaders.

MOTTO:

"Once war was declared

I took my courage by both hands

and strangled it!"

Jacques Prévert,

French poet, 1900-1977,

fragment from the book FATRAS

WORLD PEACE POEM

P lea to all nations:
E xpress your feelings against war without fear,
A ct now, don't follow blind the masses,
C ling together to make a difference,
E nd the new war before it starts.

F ighting will lead us nowhere,
O ur world deserves peace.
R equital is no solution.

T error is without doubt horrible,
H oly war, too.
E xtermination of Iraq won't change anything.

W e are all children of this planet,
O ur common goal should be a better world for us all.
R aise your voices,
L oud and clear,
D emand peace for this world!

© 2002, by Christiane Grenzebach, Germany

Imagine Sunrise
being buried in my stomach,
that's how down I feel
when I think of war.

Oranges don't grow in deserts
anymore but are forever lost
in the cursing of one another
when the one who is not bothered
by the terror of his dreams
scarecrows me & you,
bullies our light so much
it retreats to the smallest corner,
creating the comeback of cockroach paradise.

I've always known this sentence:
the road to hell is only fat & baby black,
crying from New York to Baghdad.
Yes, hurting souls seems easier than removing tears
but that does not stop me of hearing the cold splendor of the lies.

Brother in arms,
allow me also a single shot,
to shoot one star
& make one wish
about one death:
& that's the death of war!

FRIENDS & VICTIMS OF WARS

Once we skip-hopped and shared a life of simple fun.
In school we sang most ardently our anthems.

We blithely played and exchanged our marbles.
Today we exchange sharp and fatal bullets.

We were proud of our ancient monuments lauding our past.
Today we destroy these treasured landmarks with fierce abandon.

Our parents boasted about our mental and physical progress.
Today they are silent at our passion of willful destruction.

Our fathers shared tools, seeds and everything.
Now all alone they burry their fallen offspring.

Our mothers were friends, and talked and laughed together.
Today every mother has to grieve alone for her children.

salaam=shalom

Crazy World

Full of effort
calculated
nimble
light
hands fires

Yesterday
today
tomorrow
they spread
miserable sorrows

Why not
friendly
peaceful
remained
driven by love

upon the sunny desert
there falls no rain
only tears
and blood
of pain

*.-.*.-.*.-.*

The Source

Peace like a river

Eludes concern for the poor

Cascades from the Lord

Shatter costly perfume jars

Humility pours honour

© Margaret Newton, Canada

Stop murderer’s hand,
refuse the power sowing death,
there,
where innocent eyes
search the sun
to begin to live.

Open yourself, nailed heart,
let the light filter
from love fissures,
bringing future
to undefended arms,
no graves, no crosses.

My body trembles,
it rejects innocent blood,
while it receives
with joy
transfusions of peace
and life

I wonder that the son of the man
who torched the oil fields
can bring himself to do it all over again
can think it's a grand gesture
can conscience the death of more
women and children
in the aftermath of what is only
boys turned into men and
again
playing with tanks and guns
again
snuffing the life out of joy
again
taking things too far
when there are other
better
options
other
better
ways
other better
scenarios
other
better
ways
to see one's name
appear in
History
books

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no violence
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BRAZILIAN BLUES

My Dear God,
Can You give me some inspiration?
Please, my God.
The men that just love money, money, money
want only destruction.

I am a Brazilian man,
And I think
A lot of people in the World
Want to live within Love.
Do You think that too?
So, my Lord,
Give me some voice
Voice to shout to the World:
No war! No war! No war!
And later,
I would like to try,
To breathe,
To relax,
To dream and to see:
All the people in the World
Living a great life in peace.

My God!

Step on the head of the serpent
so the egg will be destroyed

In its womb,
generating the monster of war,
Which fills the world with infernal vapors
And our lives with an intense pain

Make humanity hold hands
seeing each other as brothers

My Lord, make famine disappear
Because You made the land
for our nutrition growth
for all,
rational and irrational

Those who sent the soldiers to war,
don’t they taste blood in their mouths?

The mouth which speaks in favor of war.

Don’t they taste the bitterness of blood in their mouths?
Those who told them to pull the trigger,
don’t they smell the mud of the bodies on the ground?

Those who defend war
don’t scream.
Don’t scream in pain,
don’t have love for life.

There's something in the air
that smells like countless dead.
There's something in his voice
that sounds like countless bombs.
There's something in this world
that's buying off our souls.
There's something in our skins
that's about to burn in full.

Poema cadena
cadena poema
mapoe denaca
nadeca emapo
Ir a q. Q ir a
Aqir Qari
BUSSSSSSSSSH
¡sadam, sadam!
Brrrrrmmmmm
Brrrrrmmmmm
BANG, BANG, BANG
GANG, GANG, GANG
KLAN, KLAN , KLAN
Alá, Dios, Yavhé
Vheyasoidala
oil oil oil oil oil oil oil oil
OOOOOOOiiiiiiilllllllllll
Darkoil
Brentoil
Alá, Dios, Yavhé
KLAN KLAN KLAN
BANG BANG BANG
END END END
STOP STOP STOP.

"The nature of the world-reality’s self-organization shows its principle to be a creative poor in violence process of balancing out and creating, of creative-equalizing integration of power and resources, i.e. of an “organic peace order” with its “social imperative” aiming at peace, with its peace culture, as fundamental legality, conformity with the natural laws of self-organization.

Peace doesn’t mean a world wherein the for the world’s “life” necessarily existing tensions and energies are extinguished. But it describes a world wherein those are stripped of their destructive aspects and made productive within a common liberal order of balancing out.

Within conflict situations always there has to be found a new land. That is a “hidden common creative sphere of balancing out” as condition for at the same time any succeeding structural docking, coexistence, any viable living together, and as prerequisite as well as improvement of the prevailing own system always anew. This is the more, the humane, by that the whole extends the sum of the parts, the world law of the hidden contrasts’ harmony elaborated by Heraklit, opening on more complex evolution’s levels new creative possibilities, new structures, new processes and products.

As man is living, he is free, and for his free living there must be peace. Freedom is the unfolding of man’s possibilities in peace and responsibility beyond all primary bonds, their repetition on a higher level, like family and fatherland, as well as beyond all suppressions and estrangements. For self-determination, freedom, only in lasting peace times can decide responsibly in a changing environment what is “just and unjust” and how contrasting interests have to become balanced out eliminating causes of violence with it in principle preserving life and the reality of all, yes possibly expanding it.

The self-organization of the world enables the man to find out on the basis of pragmatic if-then-descriptions the destructive powers of relations, to influence them by life-effective ones, to take from them their destructive effects thus improving the state of the world order. The new paradigm shift permits the man to confront the vision of the world as a destabilizing and self-destructing disorder of war with the one of the reality as a self-stabilizing and growing peace order. The question occurs of the brutalization or the civilization of the man in the near future, in the end the one of the personal human freedom and its bond, namely the one for the responsible self-restriction of the human creativity, i.e. for the immediate change, improvement, of his self-understanding.

Peace for the whole world, peace for Iraq!"

"flags, flags, flags
nothing but flags
simple colors
compared to the
rainbow I watched
today from the square
around the corner
where I live
by the way
have you ever seen
the surface of a
puddle of oil?
right, colors of rainbow
same colors
different worlds
all veiled by
flags, flags, flags
nothing but flags
in simple tricolor
to reduce it all
into black and white rubble."

Compassion I

Dedicated to Abu Amar, Nelson Mandela and Tony Benn

We are all travellers on Space Ship Earth
Contributing to life through our birth.
There is no inferior race.
We all deserve a living space.
All of us comprise Life's creation
Of class, colour, creed, sex and nation.
All souls in their own fashion
Were created with caring compassion.

We are equal, eternal souls in human form,
Also those not conforming for our norm.
"Love your fellow man and follow my way",
Is what we hear the masters say.
To preach this path and practice the opposite
Sends signals of a spiritual hypocrite.
All souls in their own fashion
Are on Earth to develop compassion.

Compassion does not treat others apart.
Compassion means to act from the heart,
Never purposefully produce pain,
Feeling oneness with all life again.
The true test of spirituality
Is how we treat others in reality.
All souls in their own fashion
Can daily practice loving compassion.

Love is much higher than theory.
Only heart-felt love can set us free.
This basic truth we must understand.
Love is how to treat our fellow man.
Anything less is meant to deceive.
Conning us that we may believe.
All souls in their own fashion
Can grow by loving Life with compassion.

It's all right when our hearts are burning.
It's all part of a lifetime's learning.
This simple truth survived through the ages.
Was proclaimed by all the sages:
"The only signs that our souls have grown
Are the deeds through which our love is shown”.
All souls in their own fashion
Through kind conduct can convey compassion.

Heaven is our father, Earth our mother.
Hence, we all relate to each other,
While the benevolent boon of breath
Sustains us all from womb to death.
With a loving, humble attitude
Our hearts will fill with gratitude.
All souls in their own fashion
Can redeem themselves through compassion.

Why are the Israelis happily elevated
Through human rights being violated?
Why do they feel the need to degrade
Others by nation, station, sect, sex or shade?
When we open our eyes we see, of course,
They are totally bereft of a conscience and remorse.
All souls in their own fashion
Can open up their hearts to compassion.

Thousands killed and maimed in Sharon’s name,
His brutes untamed, their victims blamed!!!
God knows how many lives they took
While barring the World from having a look?
Wouldn’t it be just and joyfully freeing,
If all they we’re seeing, were a human being?
His brutes too in their own fashion
Must embrace humane-kind via compassion.

The Security Guard

A tall, sandy, young man
he loped over to us, friendly
like a golden retriever, came
to greet us at the slick USA chain hotel.
He knew we'd come for the hearing.
- I'm security to keep the peace,
not just for the judge, but you too.
worked ten years
a policeman
on the streets of Vancouver.
I saw things I don't want
to remember.
I hate violence
I hope this hearing will be peaceful-
he turned to leave
-time to go in and get set up -
then
- Don't tell them I said it
but, give them Hell
I get the creeps just thinking
about those nukes out there.
We left the sun and walked into our shadows
to assemble
in the gloom of judgement
a dusty, sunless room
the "hearing officer"
a judge
with a mind empty of metaphor
crammed with legal minutiae
his words were sharp silica,
erosion against our passion,
for him even our logic was
too remote,
our love of light, of life,
irrelevant
to the legislation.
assaulted by his
letters of the law,
we spoke and left.
we breathed again in the sun outside
said goodbye to
our peaceful guard
indifferent to our haste,
he talked

once
I knew a Japanese woman
in Vancouver,
she had really
unusual tattoos,
one day
I asked her about them -
his words blew past me
as I tried to get away
going home.

then -
she told me -
these are
not tattoos
but
the pattern
of the
kimono
I was
wearing
the day
they
dropped
the bomb
on
Hiroshima.

*********************

Listen...

to the pulse of life
in every human heart...
it cannot encompass
the insanity
of war destruction anymore...
Where is our intelligence
if we can not communicate
and respect
the Right to Live? ...
What is technology good for
if it promotes death
instead of Life?
Could we in the year 2002
create and celebrate
ourselves
in harmony with
our mother
Earth...?
Can we bestow
in our children
the gift of Peace?
the gift of a
safe world?...
A sense that
Life is sacred
and it will be
honored and respected?
Could we all
listen to the pulse
of Life
to the pulse
of Love
that affirms
our existence
in the rhythm
of our hearts? ...

Mountain north

in the once mighty land
in the once famed land
land of once great men of soil
fortress of my people's souls
once, one, on
that mighty land
now blood flows
this once mountain
mountain of north
I see only a hill
in the mighty mountain of the north
I see now only a ball of soil
remembering mount of the north
my heart wails
my home dear home
sweat home
burnt home
shredded home now
rebel home
bullet home
blood home
axed head home
war home!
peace when will you visit mount north again?

Foreswear the Promise of the Future, America

In a land where votes were stolen and the media manipulated like a joke
I thank those who have joined together to bring promise to the spoken word. When I was young I was taught that I could raise my bosom and that the flag would foreswear my allegiance
To goals and vision that would embrace the global community and man each in his individual way, democracy!
Now I know that I must seek again to re-imagine a dawn from friends and even foe
Based on no hesitation that the promise has been broken
Emboldening the word through documentation much like writing the constitution or the declaration of independence
I will join with you each and every one like a brother and sister, mother and
father parent and child, mentor and disciple to find a new beginning and seek hope joined with the family of man
That the future will not be stolen more and that truth will hold value,
that hearts will lift to fortify and ensure freedom and that moral law and
the legal framework will bind integrity in a battle against Satan, both in terror and revenge and that every man and woman will sound the bell of future generations

With your crown asunder can you refurbish your laurels based on a spiritual
inheritance? from civil rights won through sheer force of will, a vote
protected in the distant past
A bloodless revolution with hallowed halls of infinity a noble victor in the
humble leadership of martyrs at the side of King
At once young, with virtue like a remembered honor in the lion's den of
Damocles
Can we overcome knowing the fear of death?
Will we know peace again and a code of law that forged through forbearance
will decide a victory?
Let's join together and continue to fight until we see it done, each in his
or her own way but side by side until a spiritual civilization is cultivated
and accord brings harmony through treaties with vision blessed through
diversity embracing global leadership.
Shaking off the shackles of fraud built by corrupt men stealing what is not
theirs and seeking to blindside our resources as if we do not see them or
know what they have done.
We will outsmart the devil through kindness and determination to protect our children and the future, this I foreswear with you by my side, new friends and old, each in their own step and at their own pace in a rhythm blessing the sanctity of life.

NEVER

On a fatal day I went to the graveyard of Never.
Streets were eternal deserted; winter had erased the last traces of the warmth of fall.

As result of the posted measures the city of Never was almost completely evacuated.
The sky covered in grey spots veiled the memories buried in painful hearts.
A Remembrance photo was shining bright like a sign on the marble reflecting eternal peace.
My brain became alerted by persisting lightning.

“Hell is the others?” …
These others cannot trespass the most precious of the small paradise of my inner conscience.
Far away from all human disasters, incarnated in the ardour of spring of a flowered valley,
there where concrete and steel could not leave their mark…
Far away from the suffocating evaporations of the Golem City...

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!!!

my father traveled Europe
from front to front
I travel the world
from friend to friend
may my sons travel the universe
and visit their sons

EPILOGUE

Good and evil

walk on opposite sides

It’s the choice we make

Which affects our lives

Peace and war

walk on opposite sides

It’s the choice we make

Which affects the world

2002, Canada, Tais Lintz

International Festival of Poetry, Medellin, Colombia, PAZ=PEACE