POETS AGAINST THE WAR FROM REDDING AND MT. SHASTA CALIFORNIA

 

Carrie Campbell
60 years old
Redding, CA

I am a published poet. I am a very proud mother and grandmother.

I am very concerned about the direction of our country.

We are in serious need of voice's of reason!  Let the voices be heard before it is too late.

 

The Lie

Where is the honor our country once knew
Reason lost in the quest for battle
Morality merely cast aside
Men's egos served up with pride
The war machine march's on
The world watching with distrust
Men women and children no more than targets
Too be bathed in a sea of fire
Authors of the war safely far away
Blanketing their families from the horror
Small children eyes filled with terror
So many wounded and dying
The smell of burning flesh all around
What is this hell we have found
Oil flowing with the blood of so many
Bathing our democracy in shame
This war preempted in a fathers name
History shall not be kind
Nor will history hide the lie
There was never a reason for so many to die

 

 

Larry Greco Harris

54 years old
Redding, CA

I work with teenagers who have fallen out of the system. Many join the service to find hope and a future.

 

Grace Enough

I woke today and jumped
with a start from my bed:

“Are these incoming
bombs I hear?  

Did I raise my babies and wrap
their presents and calm their fears
and teach them well
so that they could rush out the door
and die for that thing
that everybody knows
is really…really important?

And are the people
who are saying its really,
really important
living on?  living well?
losing nothing?

Are these outgoing
bombs I hear?

And is some darker father, a half a world
away, at this very moment, in the middle
of his eastern night, rocking so sweetly
the delicate dead of his household?

While young American veterans
wake late into the night
to glue (without glue)
the scattered shrapnel of their own
Golden Rules, all the while
dreaming of never dreaming
of foreigners—or themselves—again.

Is simple human flesh
still speaking to simple
human flesh in the language
of iron.

Is it still all born of greed
and sold as fear? Or born
of fear and sold as strength?

Has our collective wisdom
succumbed once again to the
seductive tactics of intelligence.

Are these things we are
on the brink of seeing
really happening?

Are those bombs
I hear?

Or is it the sound
of just enough grace
to pause.”



February 12, 2003

 

Flip-Side of the Spin

BAD ATTITUDE FOR BAD ATTITUDE

* All’s Fair in Love and Oil.
* Clever parents limit their children’s
  choices:  “What would like to believe in  
  today, Johnny...The Axis of Evil or The Evil
  Axis?
* Elections are the Mothers of Invasion.
* You can lead an ally to the desert, but you
  mustn’t let him think.
* Falling in love with monuments is falling
  for make-believe.  
* Fear is 1% reality, 99% Terror Alerts.    
* So, you say American families want their
  sons back?...Let them eat heroes!
* Hey, it’s not our fault that the innocent  
  get killed...Saddam started killin ‘em first!
  Sometimes we can’t see the Bushes for the
  Axis.
* Better us than us.



SPINNING A RHYME:

Humpty-Dumpty started a war,
Not fully explaining just what it was for.
He armed all the forces with passionate men,
And told them to shoot before counting to 10.

76 sound-bites sold the Big Parade,
With 110 Corporate bosses in the lead,
Followed by rows and rows
Of the teens that want to grow
To be all Time-Warner says To Be!



BIGGER THAN SPIN:

* This is your brain.  This is your brain on
  Pride.
* New Rule:  Good Guys draw first.
* It’s not about the Left,
  It’s not about the Right,
  It’s Bully-Kid tactics of Might makes Right.
* A soldier saved, is a child earned.
  A child saved, is a soldier's soul.


A CASE FOR MORE THOUGHT:
  The journey of ten thousand funerals starts with a Single Word;

  the Journey to Peace needs Many, Many.

 

Nadia Hava-Robbins

Redding, CA

I have published my poetry in the USA and abroad, have hosted poetry open mics for many years and continue to do so. I also put on performances of poetry, music, song, dance, storytelling, and art.

 

Graves of War

Behind the walls of war
small children and innocents
are buried
along with desperate tears
of their mothers and fathers
but no others
gallery of dreams
displays cruel portraits of massacre
power, greed, and ignorance
turning one man against another
bloody battle
where lives do not matter
no conscience of wrong or right
in all-consuming war
that simply condemns a race
to die

 

Midnight Prayer

Rain,
rain wash away
the hurt and pain
the pain, the hurt, away
rain the rain
rain away the betrayal,
the tears running down the young cheeks
innocent still and helpless
no love, nor gentle hand, only hard...
hard rain
beat the ground
wash the mud, the hatred away, the sline
rain away the torture and war and crime
that rhyme
with hunger and scars and madness.

Suffering breath
breathe the rainy air
that airs the suffocating rooms
and cubicles and cells
and cellars locked and dark and damp
the rainy air that airs the air
of horror and death.

Raining, rain coming down,
falling bombs and bullets and hits and belts
and cigarettes and numbers burned in skins
and twisted legs and arms
and droplets of blood rolling down the wounds
spilling out guts
and heads torn away from their bodies
away in ditches, and wombs
and newborns thrown away in trash cans
away, away, which ever way
but no way ahead.

Rain, rain, streams of rain
drown the rage, the nightmare away
violence and revenge,
pity and guilt,
away, away
skies and clouds rain
rain pour down as hard as you may
and wash this earth
clean.

 

Where Have You Gone Democracy?

Hunger for power
war feeds that hunger
bloodshed has nursed our great leaders
giving them strength
against their own people

What’s there to justify
crimes committed in the name of freedom
empty excuses and promises
to suppress the already oppressed
the malnourished resistance
the revolutionaries
Where have you gone, Democracy?

The more you eat
the more you hunger
there’s not enough to go around
the power shall be mine and only mine
and if you want to eat
find your own crime

The children are crying
they also are hungry
our great leader
what will you feed them?
War is not what they need to eat


February, 2003

 

 

           

Margaret Rooker

Redding, CA

I am a poet/scholar and tenured professor of English, teaching composition at the local community college, Shasta College.

 

Letter to a Mother, February 12, 2003

Beautiful lives swelling under the hearts,
hearts of beautiful women,
women with brave hearts.
hearts that pump blood,
blood in the womb,
womb to the new beating heart,
heart of the brave to bear,
bear new life in this world,
world unbearable, blood, soaked,
spattered bones shattered, splintered,
lungs coughed out,
soft skin peeled, sloughed off.

No, no more will we offer
bone of our bone to destroy
other mothers' babies.

 

           

Leslye Layne Russell

Redding, CA

Writer of poetry and poetic prose. Teacher, songwriter, singer.

Lover of mountains, snow, forests, and rivers. http://whiteowlweb.com

 

Iraq

dark

dark   eyes

dark   eyes   of   the   children

say   no

say   no   don't

say   no   don't   do   it

again

say   no   don't   do   it

say   no   don't

say   no

dark   eyes   of   the   children

dark   eyes

dark

 

 

Three Haiku

two robins land
in the bare dogwood
the world talks of war



daffodils in darkness
the moon wanes
over the Middle East



almond blossoms drift
onto tilled garden soil
white ash of bombs

 

February 16, 2003, San Francisco Peace Rally Haiku (Senryu)

joan and bonnie
   in harmony for peace
      thousands of ears

              

bonnie sings and plays
   stills' "somethin's happenin' here" . . .
      her notes cry


              
joan's voice
   over the white city
      tears fill my eyes



san francisco
   300,000 in the streets
      full moon finale



peace on the airwaves
   filling the car for miles
      till only static

           

Pamela Spoto

Redding, CA

I am a teacher, poet, stick artist--and lover of animals and other living beings.

 

Love Poet

I am a love poet

I write poems about love
   and kissing and teeth
   and the space between your toes.

But now,
I have nothing poetic to say.

Politics are not poetic
War is not poetic
Killing is not poetic
Bush is not poetic
Even Powell is not poetic

Yet, it is the poet, the songwriter,
   the artist
   who slams reality
   in your face
Ani DiFranco   Amiri Baraka   Steve Earle

The state of New Jersey is so mad at Baraka--
they want to get rid of the position
of poet laureate--
Baraka won't resign.
When Baraka was appointed
the state of New Jersey must have/
must have known his history
must have read his writing.
Baraka is a revolutionary.
Did they think they appointed
a timid, on-the-page, traditional poet?
His words leap from the page
pounding and twisting
into your brain.
He's a fine poet.  

I want to be a revolutionary.

Doesn't anyone care big brother
has moved on in?

The banking I do
The purchases I make
The books I check out
The prescriptions I fill
The phone calls I make
The websites I visit
The credit cards I use

If I buy too much of one thing
the government may come calling,
brought to you by
Total Awareness Protection Program,
The U.S. Patriot Act,
Ashcroft, Rumsfeld,
Bush and his boys.

I am supposed to feel more secure.

Your friendly meter reader or PG&E person
   could be a snitch
New USA motto:  Spy on your neighbor.

This is not poetic shit
   man

I want to write about
   the thickness of your chest
   your lips
   your toes.  

Too bad.

 

David  Kent

44 years old
Mt Shasta, CA

I am a self-employed wholesale distributor of natural food and bakery products.  I like to write poetry and this is the first time I've ever been inspired enough to submit a poem.

 

Silence is Golden - A Poem to Laura Bush

Poets through history
Know the power of the word
My government today
Only the sword

Silence is golden
I've heard that said
When it's the voice of the people
Something is dead

You close the door
Why can't we disagree
All you seek to erase
You do not hold the key

Behind the plastic face
Out with my tongue
The eyes belie the disgrace
Pick up the pen

Silence is golden
When all is said and done
My freedom
Has already been won

In the end
I can look you in the eye
You look down
Why?

 

Larry  Lancaster

67 years old
Mount Shasta, California 96067

Korean War Veteran 5 Years service - Honorable discharge - Paratrooper - 101st Airborne and 11th Airborne Divisions –

Now a bookstore owner

 

The School Choir

The School Choir

their faces of true innocence
by time and fear unblemished
framed a lambent harmony
. . . hanging in suspension

as i heard the old men gather
with their eager dogs of war
dogs consumed with hellish fury
forcing the abandoned door

i saw these sheltered well loved children
summer proms and sporting games
first time kisses holding hands
. . . hanging in suspension

while i heard the old men purring
twisting logic fact and reason
persuading minds uncomprehending
to sacrifice with passion

as the songs of youthful splendor
filled the room and awed us all
with notes that scrolled up into chords
. . . . . hanging in suspension

while the old men in their sanctum
legislated hate and anger
voicing this yet voting that
dispatching youth to danger

i spoke with captains not yet ranked
tomorrows nurses on the line
wingless pilots someday flying
. . . . . hanging in suspension

while i heard the old men cheering
heroes they would soon ignore
heard them laud the families weeping
riven by the dogs of war

as i heard these singing children
as i heard their choral song
as i heard a mothers keening
. . . hanging in suspension

 

 

 

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)