After the Utter Futility, Peace Returns

After the Utter Futility, Peace Returns

Written in 1992, this poem was shaped by the shadows of its own time. Yet as conflicts continue to unsettle communities across the world, its reflections on futility, fracture, and the fragile return of peace feel as resonant today as they did more than thirty years ago.

 

Utter Futility It Begins…

A sudden staccato crack of gunfire sears the evening skies

Then a cacophonic chorus of artillery, and another baby dies

Warplanes screech across the heavens, bombing all around,

Helicopter gunships wheel and clatter, strafing the innocents on the ground. For a civil war has erupted without a word of warning, death, fear, and avarice herald this day’s dawning.

Soldiers (who once were neighbours) advance, firing small arms from their hips.

Slaughters’ hideous laughter punctuated only when changing ammunition clips.

Homes, schools, and churches destroyed, crops in the fields burnt, livestock perish.

Friends, family, and loved ones lost, there’s little left to cherish,

Save for the precious few survivors that fortune chose to save

Plucked by providence’s mercy, saved from a communal grave.

Towns and cities set ablaze and laid to total waste,

Scattered belongings strewn around, a testament to the haste

Of the people running wildly, abject fear upon their face

To search in vain for shelter, to find a safer place.

They look on helplessly as their villages are swept aside

Tiny homes, whole communities are crushed as this satanic ride,

The invaders war machine rumbles on scorching all within its path

And no amount of prayers and tears shall assuage its wrath.

But who hears the mournful cries of this beleaguered nation?

Condemned by greed and merciless hatred and war’s savage damnation?

Who’ll halt the invader in his tracks and this entire carnage end?

Who’ll silence NOW the winds of war and love and solace send?

The Kindly Soldier…

One town’s sole survivor, a little girl under nine

Shuffles around purposelessly, covered in battle’s grime,

Her thin, plain clothes are torn, raven tousled hair unkempt

Thirsty, cold, and hungry but no anger does she vent.

She looks up imploringly through dark and frightened eyes

Utterly lost and hopeless, but not a word she cries

Then, clutching her last possession, a mutilated rag doll

She reaches out her hand in hope and I take it willingly in mine.

She tightly held my kindly hand and walked slowly by my side

We watched as waves of refugees trudged by, an ever-swelling tide

Though she scarcely took her eyes from mine, she wouldn’t speak a word,

Her experiences so private she’ll not let them be heard.

And though slowly life begins again (as does the singing of the birds)

Lonely flowers reach up for sunlight and in a little while

The little girl without a name permits a fleeting smile.

(But as vivid as those battered flowers she remembers… that vile staccato crack of gunfire searing the evening skies

And the chorus of Satan’s armoury as another baby dies)

Ceasefire…

Envoys come, and envoys go, a fragile truce achieved

Now the fight is on for solace, comforting those bereaved

Comforting those whose lives are wrecked, those who know just grief

For those who have lost everything, kind words bring no relief

Aid workers toil for hour upon hour

Through the burnt-out towns and villages, they scour…

Seeking out the injured, the afraid and dour

And bring them to Field Hospitals, a tenuous safe bower.

Now, civilian helicopters whirl around

Placing passengers on the ground

Television crews, reporters, and the world’s press crowd

The remaining vestiges of the victims, short time ago so proud.

Microphones are thrust towards poor, bandaged faces

The journalists all demand their stories (no time here for airs and graces)

All the sad tales of loved ones lost, the details of carnage, harsh and gory

Revelling in the despondency the press in all their glory

Beam their broadcasts around the world

To a pious public, safe and sound, in front of the television curled

As the news of untold horror is dramatically unfurled.

But for the time being, the ceasefire holds firm

Refugees leave their encampments and prepare to return

To their burnt-out piles of rubble that they once called home

Back to ancient homelands, they reluctantly roam

Just in time for those winter winds that whistle and moan….

*********************************************************

Very soon, the pressmen pack up to leave

Their stories no longer topical (or so they believe)

Hurriedly erected satellite dishes all now disappear

The world’s fickle audience no longer lend their ear

For their attention has been so quickly diverted to another tragedy, all too soon forgotten this poor nation’s malady…

Dangerously too is forgotten the evil warlords pledged ambition,

To inflict once more violence, death, and attrition

And soon they make ready and of their own volition

Vampire-like, they’ll strike again at a people still stricken

With anguish cold fear, empty hearts, doleful derision.

And so, the conflict continues, though its intensity wanes and waxes

The futility of it all never lessens, never relaxes.

And while “allies” continue to supply either side with numerable tools of hate,

No lasting peace shall ever ensue nor shall suffering abate.

The Kindly Soldier is redeployed…

And so, finally, I settle her down with a foster family new

Reluctant at first to leave me, but as her confidence grew

She slips her hand away from mine, fresh new adventures to pursue…

I never saw that child again. I never said goodbye

I never kissed that tender cheek; she never saw me cry…

I turned and walked away not daring to look back

Wondering if the ever the enemy would return once more to attack….

And then suddenly, a familiar staccato crack of gunfire sears across the sky…

And I think back in abject horror of the child I may have left to die…

 

Footnote:

The idea of this piece of work was to create a fictitious civil war through an imaginary microscope and to observe the effects upon a community.

The shorter verses allude to switching to a greater degree of magnification to observe one fragile, innocent child and how her private world had been so cruelly destroyed, and how indeed in the end her own life may have been lost. I left her fate to the imagination.

I did not intend to focus on any particular theatre of armed operation or specific location however, it does have resonance with the Balkans conflict, and many people have likened the work to that conflict.

It could of course, have been anywhere. Civil wars transcend race, fame and fortune, and nationality barriers.

Christopher J Green

February 1992

Source: Beşparmak Blog Spot

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