war

Beloved Paris

Standard

 

O Paris, how thy sorrow wounds my heart!
Homer did speak of love and hate,
as being attested to thy name in myth,
but woe am I, to witness such parallels in life,
where hordes have gathered to bring
vile terror upon thy beloved shores;
as did pass in ancient tales,
they come to rob you of true beauty –
spurred on by a warped sense of justice,
chosen to mask their true intent!

O Paris, let not vengeful voices deceive you
with their weighted rage to tarnish thy gallant heart.
Thy honour is worth more than
what now transpires in thy name.
If thy suffering must inspire others to rise in rage,
direct them to fall upon only those that didst wrong you
and to strike forth in a most discriminate way and spare the innocent,
so as to retain thy righteous place as a pillar of equality and justice
and in this way, allow grace to fall on thy noble brow
once the dust of war has settled.

50 Words Stories: charge of the light brigade

Standard

Such was the magnitude of foolishness, that even driven to ground by the weight of impending defeat, a lone voice dared to speak of hope. If sincerity did linger, it clearly left long ago, surrendering all to madness, whose reckless breath urged brave men to rise,… only to fall. “Charge!”

In the name of God and Country?

Standard

 

The inhumanity of our kind is legendary
So many wasted lives scattered in the wind
To fulfill dreams verging on madness.
For millennia, we have deceived ourselves.
Harnessing the politics of ancient maps and gripes
“In the name of God and Country”, rivers of
Blood we allowed to flow; through inexcusable
Callous acts only a messed up human mind,
Not God could dream. Often deluded and
Armed with misguided thoughts we seek
Retributions from others. We claim equal
Measure of blood for blood caring not for
The innocent. Our conscience, if heard,
Would weep at our acts of pure savagery.
Even aware of this, we still allow our souls
To be tarnished, as we seek to harness
Sadness to unleash unwarranted brutality
On our fellowmen. “By the will of God and Country”
We say over and over again to conceal the extent
Of our insanity. It says much when even the
Human mind cannot knowingly endure this
Degree of evil without invoking others to take
The blame. We rationalise our actions not
Because there is reason to be found but rather
To wash our hands of our misdeeds. We even
Invent words to absolve our race from sin, labelling
Such acts as “inhumane” as if this evil is not part
Of our collective nature, not part of “humanity”
When in truth it lives in all of us. The sooner we
Accept this and learn to address it, the sooner
We can claim to be truly civilised. So let us
Never forget the sacrifices, the tears and blood
That was shed in countless wars and those
Who bore the brunt of our collective wrong.

 

J M Lysun

In the dominion of men

Standard

dominionofmen

In the dominion of men,
there is much I don’t understand.

Why is there so much darkness when,
we from birth, were given light?

Why are there constant wars that we must fight?

So much madness that lead to sadness.
So much hate that won’t abate.

Why is it so hard to share and care?
Why are acts of open kindness getting rare?

So much poverty and abundance paired.
So much squandering as if we do not care.

Why can we not see the error of our ways?

Why is there so much envy,
that our hearts we cannot set free?

So much greed,
that the need for unnecessary material,
we feel we need to breed.

So much lust that makes us lose our trust.

Why do we allow pride to mar our sight?

What we do, cannot be right.

The dominion of men is just too hard to comprehend.
Our selfish actions,
as much we try,
we cannot defend.

 

J M Lysun