I have the feeling that your son is lucky to receive this fine poem as a birthday present, rather than participating in the war the poem is about.

The poem is, as always, well written and thought provoking.

Congratulations, Ryan - if you´re reading this.

And Scott, congratulations with your son!

I second Allan's sentiments wholeheartedly. Powerful poem! I just hope war and my son do not meet!

An excellent poem, emoting the futility of war, all wars. You will understand how I feel about your poem and its subject because I too have written poems (see my November 11 blog) lamenting all of the the wars since the "War to end all Wars, 1914-18" was fought. Lessons are unlearned. History is ignored. Errors are repeated. O Tempus, O Mores!.

And when you say "i'll never be able to say enough about the stupidity of war." you emote my own feelings so exactly. What did we (my generation in UK, some of us) achieve along with other ant-war protesters marching through London back in the 60's I ask my self? I know I did the right thing. I also know we changed nothing -and there's the sadness of the whole thing. In previous centuries, up to the beginning of the 20th century, Emperors and Kings manufactured wars to retain, secure, widen their empires (of course there were no domestic general referendums before such actions, democracy was merely a greek word) and then the Politicians -Presidents, Prime Ministers, Chancellors, Heads of State - took on and continued the whole process of War throughout the 20th and into this current century. I am not talking about legitimate domestic 'standing armies' for the rational purpose of 'defending a realm', no, I am talking about "the Art of Politics", per se, and the advance of Empires (all).

I realise that it can be argued that WW2 was a 'special case' and was largely about a struggle to resist the aims of dictators (although, ironically, the most powerful dictator was temporarily an ally -pragmatically- of those powers who resisted and finally overcame the aims of Germany & Japan). But having admitted this 'special case' one should look back to WW1 to see how 'cause & effect' gave rise to, specifically, the Hitler regime to understand the consequences of History and the errors of lessons unlearned.

I am working on some more ant-war poems, dealing with Iraq. I'll publish them soon. In the meanwhile I want to thank you for writing your powerful poem and for the message it contains. Happy birthday to your son, if he shares your qualities of integrity (as I have no doubt he does) then you have good reason to be justly proud of him. Well, I have had more than my 2cents worth on your page - thanks for that.

lokutus
Hampshire
England
24 Feb 2006

Hi Scott,
Happy Birthday to Ryan. Thanks for that powerful poem about war. I agree with everyone about the stupidity of war. When will people say, "Enough is Enough!"

Sincerely,
Marcus

Man, you are just oozing with talent. What a great post!
Ravo

Anonymous writes:

nice poem, but all are ignorant until they have been there and see the change in the country with their own eyes. Freedom isn't free. I wish we could read the ani-war poems of the American Revolutionary days, of how people thought it was absurd. Think its so absurd now?

Anonymous writes:

shit

Anonymous writes:

shit