Category Archives: Poem/Poetry

THE MAN, ONCE BOY

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The truth is that it is natural, as well as necessary, for every man to be a vagabond occasionally. Samuel H. Hammond

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his mind fixed on

childhood ghosts

too dearly held by him

to be forgotten

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mates standing

by the riverside,

idly skipping stones

into ripples

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or prone body on

a raft dreaming,

water moccasins dodging

his slow path

·

a small boy ready

with visions of far places,

braced for the chance

at the Fool’s leap

·

that vagabond dream

of the man, once boy

·

© poem, 2012 Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

Illustration~the Fool from the Raider-Waite Tarot deck is in the public domain

TIMES OF WAR, CHANCE FOR PEACE

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DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (1890-1969)

34TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

In office 1953 -1961

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed … “ Dwight D. Eisenhower

That quote is from Eisenhower’s speech, A Chance for Peace, delivered in 1953 three months after he took office and on the occasion of the death of Joseph Stalin, Premier of the Soviet Union (1941 to 1953). The “just peace” that the world hoped for in 1945 at the end of World War II had not materialized. While the Korean War was coming to a close, the Cold War-era military conflicts in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) were slowly escalating. The United States would have advisory troops in Vietnam in 1954. The armed conflict in that region of the world would continue long past Eisenhower’s administration with U.S. involvement escalating in the 1960s and continuing until the Fall of Saigon in 1975.

Since the end of the Second World War and the Korean War, violent conflict continues unabated with thirteen wars (defined as 1,000 or more deaths per year) currently, including the War in Afghanistan and the Yemeni and Syrian uprisings of 2011. Smaller scale conflicts resulting in fewer than 1,000 deaths per year have been rife and in 2011 include the Sudan-SPLM-N conflict, the Yemeni al-Qaeda crackdown, and the 2011 clashes in Southern Sudan. Genocides didn’t end either. We’ve had eight genocides since the Holocaust of WWII. The number of rebel groups is now over one-hundred, which probably errs on the light side. Conflicts rise from economic and social instability, which could be addressed if we invested in butter, not guns. Even in 1953, Eisenhower pointed out that war isn’t sustainable:

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

If governments don’t recognize that Earth and her people cannot be sustained by war, many of their citizens do. One modern peaceful protest for a sustainable world is of interest to all of us who read, write, and love both poetry and peace. It is 100 Thousand Poets for Change, which held its first world-wide rally on September 24, 2011 with 700 events in 550 cities representing 95 participating countries united to promote peaceful environmental, social, and political change. Poets, writers, artists, musicians, and photographers the world over demonstrated in solidarity. The next global event is scheduled for September 29, 2012. Throughout the year small, local events are delivered at a various venues. By invitation, 100 Thousand Poets for Change was at the Sharjah (an Arab Emirate) International Book Fair, which ran through November 27.  MujeebJaihoon reports, “From time immemorial, poetry has built better bridges between people than those with bricks and stones. And these bridges do not get old or obsolete…” [Change Is Born in the Womb of Poetry]

In A Chance for Peace Eisenhower pointed out, “No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.” We do hunger, individually and collectively. Perhaps our chance for peace starts with you and me. Poem on …

Note: I’m still recouperating and not on my regular schedule. I felt compelled to publish this today though Tuesday is normally “on the light side” day … Next week perhaps … Thanks to all for hanging tough with me, for continuing to follow, and for the kind emails, FB messages, and comments providing support and encouragement. It’s the best medicine. Hugs all around …

© 2011 essay, Jamie Dedes All rights reserved

The photograph of Eisenhower is in the public domain

VICTORY IS MINE

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NOTE: I originally posted this poem about a year ago. It reads as something overly dramatic to me now. When I posted it,  many readers took it to be a sort of horror poem. It was, but not in the sense it was taken. I had literally aspirated stomach acid into my lungs. Since I already live – that being the operative word – with a serious interstitial lung disease, this was not just excruciating. It was frightening. Aspirating any food into the lungs is an “insult” (as the docs put it) to the lungs. I assumed acid would have to be an even more dangerous event resulting in more scar tissue than I already have. We can’t breath through scar tissue. There’s no exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

There was someone in the next room that evening, but I was unable to call for help. I just sat in bed writing this rebellion in my head. That was then …

Currently health issues are a bit taxing. Like everything else in life, all bad things come to end. No worries, but that is the reason my visits to you have not been what they used to be. It is why my posts have been irregular. Thank you for hanging in with me and for understanding and for Facebook messages and emails expressing concern. I expect to be back on a regular blogging schedule come the end of December, including frequent blog visits to you. I value you … Live hugely! I do believe the ability and will to love makes us all victors in the end … ;-) In metta, Jamie

Photograph courtesy of Anna Cervova, Public Domain Pictures.net.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

I sink my teeth into you, you slave of fear

And dost with poyson, waree, and sickness dwell …

Death Be Not Proud, Divine Sonnet 10, John Donne, English poet and preacher, 1572 – 1631

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You, Vampire, thriving on the energy of fear,

I slow you, slay you, sink my nails into you

as I sink my nails into the moon

You knock, knock, knock at my door

But I have barred it and locked it

I have hung a magic amulet from the rafters

My screams rise silent as a roar, black as a sun

They rise from the heart and pierce the dusty sky above

My laughter is a sharp cackle scratching your green eyes

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Your claws seek to separate me from my loves,

the very joys that are the foundations of my soul

My spirit grows weary then springs back again

like a wilting plant newly watered by a green hand

Yet again I won an ugly  battle as puce and putrid acid rose

and filled my tender lungs – I breathed, I breathed, I poemed

as if there would ever and always be another sun

Know you, I am here to race and tear, to rail and gag

and still I’m laughing, poeming, loving, loving

Yes! Yes! – you Blackguard, in the end you will win the battle,

but I stand strong, strongest as the real winner, true victor

For unlike you, I have loved …

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So take your ax and your cloak and bury yourself

in the dark, the rusty, the bleakest bog

Your soul is prose and mine is poem and

I am straight and vigorous, the winner of all

For unlike you, I have loved.

Victory is mine.

Photograph “Keep Out” courtesy of Kim Newberg, Public Domain Photographs.net.

O death, where is they sting? O grave, where is they victory?” St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:55