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"Men kill.
That much we are the same as animals. Men kill legally sometimes. Here,
we become slightly different. Legalised or lawful killing. What a
horrific concept this is! Should it really be allowed? What does it
mean anyway not in a
superficial sense but in a fundamental sense? Capital punishment, legal
killing by the
police, killing in self-defence and of course killing in wars. Between
the lawful
killing and unlawful killing there is an endlessly murky world where
all ethical, legal and
otherwise reasons or justifi cation become suspect. So much so that one
wonders
if all wars are not suspect indeed. The number of causes, conditions
and circumstances
of war, especially in modern time, is infinite. No single or simple
answer can explain
this most human of all human activities. One kills and dies in defence
of the
country in the belief that its government is doing the right and just
thing. What if
that government betrays one? What if that government fails itself and
fails the people
it is supposed to serve? The war in Iraq is a case in point. Had
lessons not been learnt
from the Vietnamese war?"
Extracted with permission from Vietnam Ruminations by
Robert D. Wilson: FOREWORD by Susumu Takiguchi Chairman, The World Haiku Club |
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 * ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP * |
Robin Ouzman Hislop
(Editor)
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ROBIN OUZMAN HISLOP: Born UK. Childhood in Lyme Regis & Poole Dorset. Lived Scotland & Scandinavia, The East & Spain. He now lives in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK. He appeared in the Dawn Millenium & Crystal Dawn Anthologies published by Kedco Studios. When he first joined the world wide net he abandoned his previous poet performance career, mostly had in Spain and often as bilingual joint translation recitals. His collected works now appear in Poetry Life and Times every month, so far Hinterland 2000 and Blue Corn 2002 have appared. Next comes After the Cave the Comet 2004, Just Suibhne So, Least Assuages Revistited & Hunters Moon 2006. The entire collection will be available in the epic form 2 Trilogies In Memoria. He started as resident poet with Poetry Life & Times in March 2005 & took over its editorship together with Spanish poetess Amparo Arrospide from Sara Russell in May 2006.
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SARA RUSSELL We, the UnimportantBy Sara L. Russell, 24/6/07 Did we ever want this intervention, This brandishing of military might? Could it be any citizen’s intention To send the bombers blazing in by night? No retribution aimed at politicians Would ever pierce their tight security; Yet we, who never offered our permissions, Could all be slaughtered with impunity. We go about our bleak everyday travels On sweaty trains, while those with limousines Glide safely on, as peace of mind unravels And bombs are stored in grocers’ mezzanines. |
SARA RUSSELL Poet, cartoonist and short story writer. Founder of Poetry Life & Times. Newsgroup signature was originally 'Pinky Andrexa, Last Of The Cyber Vixen Poets From Outer Space'. Won Internet Arts Award from Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press. Runner-up in Capricorn International Love Poetry competition 1998. Her website Poetry Life & Times recently won the Alpha Poets' Poetic Eyes web award. Won Poet of the Week in the Poetry For Thought group (The Globe groups) for the week April 28-May 4th, 2001, with the poem "If You Were Mine". Inducted into The Poets' Hall of Fame, 2001, and included in its anthology for that year.
5 illustrated e-books published by Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press (most recent first): Worlds Inside The Head, Quickies, Spiders And Gliders, A Way With Words (in collaboration with four other poets) and Pinky's Little Book of Shadows.Also published in several Kedco e-book anthologies and Forward Press bound book anthologies.
The Perils of Norris Cartoon by Sara Russell has moved to its own gallery here... don't miss gorgeous Norris misadventures! |
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 Further reading: Ilan Pappé's Website |
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*** MICHAEL BURCH***  MICHAEL BURCH |
MICHAEL BURCH
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MICHAEL R. BURCH is the editor of The HyperTexts where he has published the work of three Pulitzer Prize nominees and recent winners of the T. S. Eliot, Richard Wilbur and Howard Nemerov awards. He has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and his work has appeared over 450 times in literary journals and sundry publications in the USA, England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, South Africa and India, including The Chariton Review, Poetry Magazine, Verse, Poet Lore, Unlikely Stories, Light Quarterly, Writer’s Digest – The Year’s Best Writing 2003, The Best of the Eclectic Muse 1989-2003, The Lyric, ByLine, Icon and Nebo. Back to top |
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HELGA ROSSWhy Joe Died, a Sonnet TrilogyG I Joe (the movie): Useless. It's all useless. I was once a man. A man! -Cobra Commander In 1914, at the outset of World War I, Rudyard Kipling urged his own son to join the British military. One week after his son enlisted, he was dead. Overwhelmed with grief, Kipling wrote "Epitaphs for War." If any question why we died Tell them because our fathers lied I What makes the young men want to volunteer? (As it’s been ever since sons brandished spears). As a career?—Joe just died, did you hear? With a father who knows—Dads hide their tears— Does their own mortality seem not real; not count as much as the challenge to kill, and have it lauded, add feel good appeal? Iraq is a patriot’s poison pill!— Mom’s inconsolable, (a sibling tries), and the family’s a fatality, too; tethered with their brave boy love till he dies, their home-front Wrong War fight unties—they’re through! Gung ho to go, the odds are good he’d die, though death doesn’t settle their issue: Why? II Joe was a genuine one of his line, of forebears who fought, since Independence; felt honored and duty-bound to align with his blood’s urge of offense for defense. Dad knows a thing or two of basic drives; Spouse, tug-of-war attention for his love; each expects stars and hearts and he survives; to share the badges, not the end thereof. As for his mother, she’s an Army wife, it’s not about the Army; it’s this war; unworthy of her loss, his wasted life; her moral man who never asked “What for?” Joe trusted, trained to act and not ask “Why?” Believed he’d get the other guys—not die. III If only his country had been as fair, and in the right, as was his faith in it; as his efforts up to his dying prayer— he’d surged a Baghdad block when he was hit. A soldier smarter than critics expect, he kept up with it, the antiwar case, what with his mother’s (who had his respect)— (her kind of support some reckon off-base). If he had his own doubts he never said. Understood politics is not the same as patriae—that love can be misled— and not to back one’s buddies brings self-blame. More troops must die “to honor troops who die”? And so… Joe’s sacrifice can satisfy? © Helga Ross 2007 Jus Ad Bellum*
Translation: The Justice of War (a category of the Just War tradition) When is it right to use force as last resort?
Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~John Adams Antiwar depends on which war when one adheres to Just War—it isn’t all and none— The militant mistake us all as meek. The August One would be the first to say save ourselves we must in measure and as meets the dire need, defends the life and limb of all we love— and then our duty goes beyond— if not the best of us and strong— who protects the weak? We must! Recall the killing fields, the Holocaust! And on and on—Rwanda—now Sudan! Some say war is always with us, as reasons enough; some more: it’s politics another way; the wisest: the mere existence of sin doesn’t make sin okay (in a war the guilty are punished and innocents always pay); the pacifists may no more than wish the worst away while the wicked kill the innocents day-by-day. In the end, we can only weigh the sins of war against the certain sin; the worse sin— could be; maybe no way: The call to arms— choose the least harm!— Such was the Good War, the Cold War; one yay, one nay— the least harm cannot but be the greatest good. Today, while we delay, debate the evils we don’t stop, hundreds die, die, die, every day: Darfur meets the Just tests, Iraq does not. How long do we reason with rocks? © Helga Ross 2007 |
Her poetic voice is playful, provocative, uplifting. Her serious pieces conclude on a positive note; reflect her approach to life: "Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for." — Ray Bradbury On the key to success
Recent Accomplishments: Prix Poesie's laissez-faire Faire Award, April 2004. Poetry selections published in Sonnetto Poesia Vol.3 no.2 Spring 2004; Vol.4 no.4 Autumn 2005; Vol. 5 no.2 Spring 2006.
