The shovel is brother to the gun

A Canadian soldier with her national brand.
I wonder what she feels on this day that honours the fallen. Does she think about our collective idea of a veteran as a kindly old white-haired fellow with his war bride on his arm, accolades adorning one breast-pocket, and a poppy on the other? How does she incorporate herself into that image?

Is it possible for the image of the veteran to be supplanted by today's soldiers who fight under a different and ill-planned banner of justice? Soldiers who lack the ideological support of a large percent of the population? Afghanistan is not a sure thing. Citizens are confused, the government is bumbling, and our Foreign Minister will not apologize for his sexist "mistake" and therefore cannot be expected to be accountable for moral and mortal mistakes in warfare.


~Marge Piercy ~ Right to Life
[A Woman is] not a purse holding the coins of your
descendants till you spend them in wars.


~ Katha Pollit ~
Trying to Write a Poem Against the War

My daughter, who's as beautiful as the day,
hates politics: Face it, Ma,
they don't care what you think! All
passion, like Achilles,
she stalks off to her room,
to confide in her purple guitar and await
life's embassies. She's right,
of course: bombs will be hurled
at ordinary streets
and leaders look grave for the cameras,
and what good are more poems against war
the real subject of which
so often seems to be the poet's superior
moral sensitivities? I could
be mailing myself to the moon
or marrying a palm tree,
and yet what can we do
but offer what we have?
and so I spend
this cold gray glittering morning
trying to write a poem against war
that perhaps may please my daughter
who hates politics
and does not care much for poetry, either.


~ Wilfred Owen ~
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: "Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."


~ Randall Jarrell~
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.


~ Carl Sandburg ~
Iron

Guns,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.
Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.

Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.

      I ask you
      To witness-
      The shovel is brother to the gun.


~ ani difranco ~
to the teeth

the sun is setting on the century
and we are armed to the teeth
we're all working together now
to make our lives mercifully brief
and schoolkids keep trying to teach us
what guns are all about
confuse liberty with weaponry
and watch your kids act it out
and every year now like christmas
some boy gets the milkfed suburban blues
reaches for the available arsenal
and saunters off to make the news
and the women in the middle
are learning what poor women have always known
that the edge is closer than you think
when the men bring the guns home

look at where the profits are
that's how you'll find the source
of the big lie that you and i
both know so well
in the time it takes this cultural
death wish to run it's course
they're gonna make a pretty penny
and then they're all going to hell
he said the chickens all come home to roost
yeah, malcolm forecasted this flood
are we really gonna to sleep through another century
while the rich profit off our blood?
true, it may take some doing
to see this undoing through
but in my humble opinion
here's what i suggest we do:

open fire on hollywood
open fire on MTV
open fire on NBC
and CBS and ABC
open fire on the NRA
and all the lies they told us
along the way
open fire on each weapons manufacturer
while he's giving head
to some republican senator

and if i hear one more time
about a fool's right
to his tools of rage
i'm gonna take all my friends
and i'm gonna move to canada
and we're gonna die of old age


~ Moxy Fruvous ~
Gulf War Song

we got a call to write a song about the war in the gulf
but we shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings
so we tried but gave up 'cause there was no such song
but the trying was very revealing
what makes a person so poisonous righteous
that they think less of anyone who just disagrees
she's just a pacifist
he's just a patriot
if i said you were crazy, would you have to fight me?

fighters for liberty
fighters for power
fighters for longer turns in the shower
and history seems to agree that I would fight you for me

so we read and we watched all the specially selected news
and we learned so much more about the good guys

won't you stand by the flag was the question unasked
won't you stand by and fight for the allies?

what can we say, we're only twenty five years old
with 25 sweet summers, and hot fires in the cold
this kind of life makes that violence unthinkable
we'd like to play hockey, have kids and grow old

fighters for texaco
fighters for power
fighters for longer turns in the shower

don't tell me i can't fight cause i'll punch out your lights
and history seems to agree
that i would fight you for me
that us would fight them for we

is that how it always will be?