Good morning from the new kid on the blog. It's Saturday, start of the week-end, start of the football season [hooray, come on you Seasiders], but also - sadly - just another fine day for sectarian violence in dozens of trouble spots around the world.
A crazy long time ago, some wise geezer reputedly said [and I paraphrase]: 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone', a paradox that ought to have rendered all further violence impossible. But hey, whoever listens properly to wise geezers? Or to each other, apparently? Cue centuries of 'religious' warfare....
Shot Through With Contradictions
There is no time
in the immediate heat
of embattled streets
and embittered minds,
in the proximity of troops and guns,
of deaths and counter-deaths,
to count the cost
of what is lost
in fighting out our lies.
A wind of war howls,
transporting the ghosts of peace
through a strife-torn town
where hope, grown weary
and theory, grown impotent
in face of force
are shredded
like the flags of pride and holiness
once flown so proudly,
now so tersely mourned.
Steve Rowland
Many thanks for reading this.
A crazy long time ago, some wise geezer reputedly said [and I paraphrase]: 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone', a paradox that ought to have rendered all further violence impossible. But hey, whoever listens properly to wise geezers? Or to each other, apparently? Cue centuries of 'religious' warfare....
Shot Through With Contradictions
There is no time
in the immediate heat
of embattled streets
and embittered minds,
in the proximity of troops and guns,
of deaths and counter-deaths,
to count the cost
of what is lost
in fighting out our lies.
A wind of war howls,
transporting the ghosts of peace
through a strife-torn town
where hope, grown weary
and theory, grown impotent
in face of force
are shredded
like the flags of pride and holiness
once flown so proudly,
now so tersely mourned.
Steve Rowland
Many thanks for reading this.