Peace poems
/ page 271 of 319 /
Pumpkins in our time
© Ivan Donn Carswell
For months on end the pumpkins lay at peace,
their parent vines had all but browned and died
although a stubborn tendril here and there had
tried to grow again glyphosate soon ended
Piscine kind of kinship
© Ivan Donn Carswell
To glibly say that Joe was sort of odd
quite missed the point. Peculiar in many
ways and kind of weird, I would have
been afraid of him were I a child (if I ever
Out of The Annexe
© Ivan Donn Carswell
It grew out of the Annexe and our Corps in a world at peace
while our army trained, magnificent in its heroic pretence,
for an implausible war. They were halcyon days
in the shelter, days that combine in easy recollections
Our Privilege
© Francis Bret Harte
Not ours, where battle smoke upcurls,
And battle dews lie wet,
To meet the charge that treason hurls
By sword and bayonet.
The Forlorn
© James Russell Lowell
The night is dark, the stinging sleet,
Swept by the bitter gusts of air,
Drives whistling down the lonely street,
And glazes on the pavement bare.
On The Death of a Father
© Ivan Donn Carswell
This dismal place I hide my grief is crowded shame,
my father would have taught me tame my trembling lips
without contempt, face far constraints tight-lipped,
remain serene; I dream how well I played his silent game.
My enemy my friend
© Ivan Donn Carswell
My enemy my friend
whom I know without compromise,
when I listened to the
deconstructions avowed of you
Jessie of Gibraltar
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Our lives were founded on this rock, this Jessie of Gibraltar
Whose unfailing love endured beyond her ample nursing,
And we grew out of a rich and favoured childhood aware
Her powers were real (we tested them enough to know their soundness) into
Retribution
© Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
When Egypt said, "Exterminate
The males among the Jews,
Fair Goshen's land make desolate
And bid them glad adieus:"
Ill have to change my mind
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Ill have to change my mind on war, I need to take a break
from structured thought; theres more to peace - it dictates
a longer oar to keep the calm than takes to make a little war.
Our history as a people is a theatre of strife and where
Bannerman of the Dandenong
© Alice Werner
I rode through the Bush in the burning noon,
Over the hills to my bride, -
The track was rough and the way was long,
And Bannerman of the Dandenong,
He rode along by my side.
I cannot let the moment pass
© Ivan Donn Carswell
I cannot let the moment pass without a weary greeting,
or retard the recent past where shadows still are fleeting,
Id sabotage the future by just staring in a mirror
and never let the glimmer pass and try to hold my image fast
The Mountain Heart's-Ease
© Francis Bret Harte
By scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting,
By furrowed glade and dell,
To feverish men thy calm, sweet face uplifting,
Thou stayest them to tell
La Vierge Au Donateur
© Edith Wharton
Here by the ample rivers argent sweep,
Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls,
Futurelessness
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Time to count the torrid cost of careless words inflicted on
your battered dignity, time to close the ugly face that chanted
out invective foul and shattered amity, time to quell
the fervid rush of feckless wrath which weighs
against the bloodied loss this manic madness brusque
and hot has flung across the face of sanity.
Free from intrusion
© Ivan Donn Carswell
You awaken this time with a welcoming smile, an experience
sublime, not a dream the boner from Hell
has presented itself like a prospect of fate, and reasoned
debate be damned, youll argue its merits later.
Dreams of better days
© Ivan Donn Carswell
At break of day we rested, the contest of our wills
declined to wrest the peace away and where
the foreign powers held sway a quiet was in abundance;
a ghostly calm entranced the crowd shrouded
Dont talk to me of War
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Dont talk to me of War or stalk the ground
our fabled soldiers died upon, Im sound
of limb and strong of will, my mind as clear
as when we learnt those gory lessons founded
In Imitation of E. of Rochester : On Silence
© Alexander Pope
I.
Silence! coeval with Eternity;
Thou wert, ere Nature's-self began to be,
'Twas one vast Nothing, all, and all slept fast in thee.
Cherry bomb
© Ivan Donn Carswell
I said goodbye and went to bed to die;
I never knew that they had lied was quite
surprised they didnt seem to care, I agonised,
refused to cry although in time the tears
