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More poems for peace 2017

Fukushima Wastelands

 Fields of black plastic bags filled with radioactive waste
stretch across Fukushima Prefacture
 Deserted streets
Deserted houses
Deserted schools

 A child’s pink bicycle abandoned in a garage Geiger counters buzz as white-clad officials monitor here and there

Deserted shops
Deserted libraries
Deserted allotments

A tsunami marker stone stands firm on a hill in Tomiaka -
A reminder overseeing this devastating destruction

The sun shines, but there’s no one about The wind blows the luscious vegetation, but it’s inedible Flowers bloom, but are not seen, smelt or picked

164,865 people have left this polluted paradise
8% of the urban and rural land mass is uninhabitable 20 milliesieverts per year
is now the Government’s safe radiation threshold

Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants lie close to tsunami-prone seas
Their white temple- like domes and austere structures
 gleam and glisten in seemingly pristine condition
 They hide the deadly plutonium within They are part of the world’s dangerous annihilative sin

[ With thanks and acknowledgements to Lis Fields ’20 Millisieverts per Year’ exhibition and the film ‘Nuclear Japan’
Ann Garrett Ashley ]
ALEPPO

Screen images of the city
show ancient buildings ruined
ghosts of their former grandeur
evidence of genocide as surely
as the sick and starving inhabitants

The combatants are fighting
to its destruction to possess it
they own the rubble corpses and rats
the debris of hopes and dreams
their shame and remorse
all that’s left of their religion
while God weeps for their sins

   © Leon Silver July 2016
THANKFUL

53 English and Welsh Villages are called 'thankful'.
Why ?
They sent their your young men to fight in World War 1.
All returned home : none had been killed.
That is a reason to be thankful.
But what if no one had been called to fight from anywhere in Britain ?
Then we would all be truly thankful.
14 of these villages are called 'doubly thankful'.
Why?
All their men returned home from World War 2 alive.
Reason enough to be doubly thankful.
But what if nobody from Britain had been called to fight ?
Then we would be doubly thankful.
We will only be truly thankful when no young men or women are sent to war.
Nobody from any hamlet, village, town, city , nation or continent , in fact the whole wide war is sent to fight.
Then and only then can be said to be truly thankful.
Richard Hart 2017
The Animals in War
It was the animals
Who carried heavy goods,
The horses dragging canon
Mules laden with supplies,
The pigeons struggled home
With messages,
Through gunpowder-blasted skies
Through mud, to trenches
Buried in the land
They struggled, sweating, panting
To bring food and medic supplies
Not just in the fields
Of Flanders,
But mountain, jungle, desert and plain
They walked on in service
Never a question of betrayal
Crossing their active minds
Fear never fazed the dogs,
Faithful companions to the end
Forever vigilant for their masters
For they are animal’s best friends
  Roisin Robertson

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