5/13/22 The Tragedy of War. We Have A Choice. Why Do Humans Choose War? Moving Poems From Ukraine War Poetry in Ukraine: Serhiy Zhadan and Lyuba Yakimchuk

 There are two sides to everything.  Somethings like night and day we can't change although electricity has allowed our nights to be brighter.  When we have a choice we often choose that which makes our life better. War in human terms does not make  life better  for anyone except perhaps  governments or certain businesses ( war it is said helps economies). 

When you see the destruction in Ukraine and all around the world you wonder what have we as a human collective done to this glorious planet and to ourselves and each other. Who in their right mind would choose suffering over peace for all?  Who could defend bombing magnificent museums, defenseless civilians, children, relics, hospitals, peoples' homes and innocent animals? It really seems to come down to what you believe, have been taught or experienced in your life.

 Isn't it time collectively to stop wars? Don't you want that? Don't you want to experience the earth being free of  man made pollution, new ways to provide food and freedom for those struggling, new forms of governments that promote  freedoms and resources for all? Don't you want to experience  higher states of inner peace and happiness, live up to your potential? See your families prosper?

Lets stop the suffering.

 Remember beyond nationality and race we are  the same. Maya Angelou said

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”

― Maya Angelou, The Complete Collected Poems

 The  Human Tragedy of War

Poets From Ukraine- W Serhiy Zhadan and Lyuba Yakimchuk

https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/war-poetry-in-ukraine-serhiy-zhadan-and-lyuba-yakimchuk/

4/10/22 Check Out Solstice, a magazine of diverse voices

 https://solsticelitmag.org/our-mission/

4/10/22 Another Time, Another War Poetry W.H. Auden

September 1, 1939

W. H. Auden 

"I sit in one of the dives

On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,..."

Read the rest at Poets.org

https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939?mc_cid=bbbd87e82

1/12/2022 " Poems for Peace Young people living in conflict use poetry to express their hopes for a more peaceful future."

Mandala for fearlessness. We need to be fearless in our pursuit of inner and outer peace.

"

Poems for Peace

Young people living in conflict use poetry to express their hopes for a more peaceful future.

           https://www.unicef.org/children-under-attack/poems-for-peace

11/23/2021 The Genius of Bob Dylan His Music is Relevant in Our World Today.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Bob Dylan

Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
And if your breath to you is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win
'Cause the times they are a-changin'

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don't stand in your doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt, will be he who has stalled
'Cause the battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticise what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The slowest now, will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now will later be last
'Cause the times they are a-changin'

Songwriters: Bob Dylan

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bob+dylan+lyyrics+tiems+they+are+a+chnaging&docid=608010285160284639&mid=52857A35DC4F8CD838BE52857A35DC4F8CD838BE&view=detail&FORM=VIRE 

Updated Version 2018 Dylan on Jimmy Fallon Show

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bob+dylan+lyyrics+tiems+they+are+a+chnaging&&view=detail&mid=6565E8AF71D91C2C831D6565E8AF71D91C2C831D&&FORM=VDRVRV

4 Pandemic Poems Elizabeth P Glixman at Oddball.com- Love this Online Magazine Check it Out

 https://oddballmagazine.com/four-poems-by-elizabeth-p-glixman/

 About the OddBall Foundation

Mission Statement

 Read more

https://oddballmagazine.com/the-oddball-foundation/

Worcester Review- New Issue. Fiction Poetry. Art. Book Reviews. Checkout Ali Wilding Beech Wood

 http://www.theworcesterreview.org/
 

Frigg Magazine Issue 56 . Editor Ellen Parker Knows How To Select Fiction and Poetry. So Much Good Work . Check Out Helen Beer's Snowfall on Mt Tams and Poems by J.R. Walsh and More

 http://friggmagazine.com/issuefiftysix/contents56.htm

A Brave and Startling Truth Poem by Maya Angelou Inspiring Words. Yes WE CAN Create Peace In This World!

https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/182826954695/a-brave-and-startling-truth

A Brave and Startling Truth

by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

  Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjEfq7wLm7M