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Sloan Bashinsky's avatar

At 81, I have yet to see one war that gave meaning to anything but misery, sadness, loss, grief, madness, greed, egoism, etc.

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Ken Paul Rosenthal's avatar

I'm reflecting on the very end of the Steven Spielberg film, 'AI', where the extinct earth is visited by alien anthropologists who sit with a re-animated robot child while ruminating on the well-intentioned potential of the human species. And I despair at how utterly tragic it is that so much of our innate creativity is employed to destroy rather than ennoble. These days, even my inexhaustible optimism is daunted and dented. I've always--and still--believe there is more beauty and poetry than terror in the world. But when the headlines are suffused with the latter, I can't help but despair. For decades, I've circumvented a daily imbibing of the news and this has generally served me well. These days, such reportage feels as if it is suffusing the very air we breathe. But yes, yes, yes, the antidote must lie in consciously making and engaging fertile works of art to sooth and nurture our sentient souls. Yes.

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Oct 10, 2023
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Ethan Summers's avatar

You adventure yourself on dangerous lands with this statement. There is some truth in what you say about the importance of violence for our survival but saying that barbarity and beauty “aren't entirely separate things in themselves”…. Well, I believe I can see a bit of what you mean by that, but it still sounds as a risky statement to me

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Poetic Outlaws's avatar

As Bob Dylan once said: “Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain.”

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Oct 11, 2023
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Ethan Summers's avatar

There is the risk that immature individuals reading it, to misinterpret the message as an encouragement to embrace darkness more than necessary. And hence they would see it an encouragement to violence perceived as a necessity

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Poetic Outlaws's avatar

Good writers aren't here to appease "immature individuals" or the illiterate. They are here to reveal from their own depths regardless of the sentiments of the public. All great writing is dangerous.

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Ethan Summers's avatar

By no means, I wouldn’t encourage censoring such writings for they bring valuable insights on our human nature

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Diane’s Blue Forum 👩‍💻's avatar

Excellent. Reading classic writers makes all the difference for perspective.

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Mark Leidner's avatar

The War Works Hard | Dunya Mikhail

How magnificent the war is!

How eager

and efficient!

Early in the morning

it wakes up the sirens

and dispatches ambulances

to various places

swings corpses through the air

rolls stretchers to the wounded

summons rain

from the eyes of mothers

digs into the earth

dislodging many things

from under the ruins...

Some are lifeless and glistening

others are pale and still throbbing...

It produces the most questions

in the minds of children

entertains the gods

by shooting fireworks and missiles

into the sky

sows mines in the fields

and reaps punctures and blisters

urges families to emigrate

stands beside the clergymen

as they curse the devil

(poor devil, he remains

with one hand in the searing fire)...

The war continues working, day and night.

It inspires tyrants

to deliver long speeches

awards medals to generals

and themes to poets

it contributes to the industry

of artificial limbs

provides food for flies

adds pages to the history books

achieves equality

between killer and killed

teaches lovers to write letters

accustoms young women to waiting

fills the newspapers

with articles and pictures

builds new houses

for the orphans

invigorates the coffin makers

gives grave diggers

a pat on the back

and paints a smile on the leader’s face.

It works with unparalleled diligence!

Yet no one gives it

a word of praise.

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Maha's avatar

Sloan, I too am 81 and echo your anguish.

“Where do you turn in the midst of a world bent on self-annihilation, a world where lives are snuffed out at random?”

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Ethan Summers's avatar

Most likely one would start praying, secretly hoping deep down, that someone will hear his/her prayers here on earth rather than there in heaven…

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Bee Gee's avatar

I was just about to pull down my Hedges today looking for his eloquent perspectives, you read my mind. Thanks for sharing, needed this.

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Constantine Markides's avatar

Reading Shakespeare and Proust in the middle of war... hardcore

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Patris's avatar

What a catechism.

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Sue Cauhape's avatar

Years ago in a poetry class, I learned of a poetess who fought in one of the Central American wars. Forgive me, but I can't remember her name. She carried her poems in her backpack along with her ammo and other necessities. Indeed, the poetry was her stability as well as her recorded self.

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Deborah Brasket's avatar

Chris Hedges wrote about the current situation in Israel and Gaza. Where will it all end? https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/palestinians-speak-the-language-of-violence-israel-taught-them

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Ghostwriter in the Sky ✨💘's avatar

"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind" is where we have ended, here at the festering end of history. Hedges sums up the reason 20 veterans die every day from self-termination, & even Eisenhower in the end warned of the overwhelming corruption of industrial war. In the Gaza/Israeli bloodbath, always aware that someone made those bombs, rockets, assault weapons for profit. Our world is being dragged over the precipice by global organized criminals, Putin being the top dog currently... follow the chain Iran-Russia bent on terror & destroying "the West"...

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Okeko's avatar

:"But these words give me a balm to my grief, a momentary solace, a little understanding, as I stumble forward into the void."

Indeed, a balm to grief provides for momentary solace; feeling grief totally is healing. IT heals so that we automagically allow healing to ripple out to all around, like waves in a void.

Thanks for sharing 💜

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Weston Parker's avatar

war is always a political choice, made out of fear or greed. our species at our ugliest

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Jo Wright's avatar

a very pertinent post. thank you.

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Stanley Wotring's avatar

The meanings of poems vary on the contextual reading with glasses of experience.

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Human's avatar

Always losing my glasses;)

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