Crying against the wind
I
I saw boys growing up as
Christians,
learning about God,
being taught at school,
to respect
about discipline,
to stretch the mind
and the boys were young and innocent
and for us there were peace.
We slept with unlocked doors,
the police did their job
to the best of their ability,
but the world changed.
II
I saw the effects
of the terrorist bomb
in church street
that smote the innocent
people in the street
and young and old
men, women
scarred, mutilated, maimed,
and cut into bits and pieces
by shrapnel and the deadly
rain of flying glass.
I saw an academic hospital
filled in every hall,
and the few doctors
and paramedics and sisters and nurses
and accountants, clerks,
and office people
issuing disaster cards
and admitting the living.
III
I saw young boys forced to become
a part of a deadly war machine,
and they were barbered, drilled, cursed
and trained to be the best soldiers,
learning discipline,
the strength found in oneself,
about friendship
and suffering the consequences
of killing humans beings.
I saw young men
playing Russian roulette
and at times
wishing to be dead
and I saw boys
becoming better persons
than they were
and starting to be
true believers
of the almighty One
and others turning
into the worst
kind of human beings
and losing all religion,
Integrity and decency
and the madness of hate
taking its toll
I saw boys going
through dense bush,
living in the field,
tracking and destroying deadly terrorists
as just another day’s work,
driving armed vehicles
and battle tanks,
fighting against great odds
and winning every battle
and the war.
I saw war,
the destruction,
the desolation that it brings,
the suffering of the innocent,
the savage carnage
and dead enemies
in great numbers
and people with shot off
legs and arms.
I saw friends die,
shot to pieces,
toasted by prosperous projectiles,
smashed by mortars
and killed
in most of the ways that war brings
and politicians lying and deposing
each other
and the world changed.
IV
I saw religious fanatics
killing innocent people,
crashing planes into buildings,
getting the war
that they begged for,
dying the death
which they sought
and innocent bystanders
paying the toll
for their deeds
and the world changed.
V
I saw the borders being thrown open
to all of Africa,
criminals streaming in,
selling drugs, running prostitution,
lost two cars
to robbers that the insurance
did not pay
and my best friend
left the country
after a hijacking.
I saw children
smoking marijuana, doing crack cocaine,
injecting themselves with heroine
living like vagrants,
whoring around,
robbing from their parents,
braking into houses,
escaping from rehabilitation,
going to jail,
losing the reasons to live,
desperately trying to get the next fix
and dying from drugs and Aids.
VI
I saw reverse racism
that changed laws,
discrimination,
white people with degrees
and experience without work,
while untrained black people
brought every government department
but the taxman
almost to a standstill
and foreign black aliens from all over Africa
having greater rights
and electricity being cut
and the country was in darkness
and the people lived in poverty
and tatters
while they thought about what they had lost
and nobody was counting the cost
and the oppressed were crying in vain
against the wind
and waiting for the rain
that brings life back again.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
My friend you talk about my people and me
My friend you talk
about my people and me
being equal
to Hitler and the Germans
of the Second World War,
but do not know
that I and most of us Afrikaners
treated black people
like human beings,
never lifted a hand
against one,
that I knew from being
a toddler that they were
Christians as well
when my mother
gave the money that was left
from my father’s funeral fund
for a church to be constructed
in their own community.
How I saw the effect
of the Church Street bomb
killing innocent civilians
on the street
men, women and children
from any race.
How I was forced
to go to the army
and to war
and patriotic did my duty there
to stop communists killing,
raping and robbing the future
like they did in East Germany,
Hungary in sixty-eight
and with the Portuguese
still living in Mozambique
and in Angola
when that countries
got their independence.
How in Soweto with the army
I had to stop black people
killing black people,
burning their fellow man alive
while their women were
cheering them on
and I saw man more being animals
than human beings
without having any mercy
for each other
having lost all conscience
for their cruel deeds.
You do not know
that I will not quarter
for a country
full of pirates
and not the Orlando
soccer playing type
but people who rob,
kill, maim and rape
that there’s no other escape
for Afrikaner people like me
and nowhere else to go
that I love this land
maybe more than
my forefathers did
who sacrificed
their lives for it
that my great grandfather Japie Strydom
lost his farm in the Cape colony
when as a Cape rebel
he joined the war
against the British,
was almost executed
when the war ended
was imprisoned on St. Helena,
that his wife
died in a British concentration camp
where she was fed finely grinded glass
in the flour given to her
that I want to get rid
of oppression against me
and my fellow Afrikaners
and want to have a life
like any one else.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Innocent World
I used to live in an innocent world
I had a car and a pretty blond girlfriend
We was too young to know what we were doing
And anyway I was just fooling around
Innocent innocent innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
With a cute little monkey on my back
And a total disregard for the facts
Id run away and never get back
From my innocent world
There aint no reason to tell no lie
When youre young and youve got a lot of pie
Now I slink around like a killer
The things they say are just a lot of filler
In my mind, in my mind
Innocent innocent innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
Running, laughing in the sun
And always having lots of fun
Smoking dope and just being young
In my innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
With a cute little monkey on my back
And a total disregard for the facts
Id run away and never get back
From my innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
Innocent innocent innocent world
song performed by by Iggy Pop
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Submission (in answer to Don Mattera)
I have seen a white old man and woman
turned onto the street,
living in cardboard boxes
with their small white dog
in the new disastrous improved South Africa,
I have seen white people taking their own lives
when black mine owners robbed them of salaries
and there was no job to get,
no living to be made
and they did this
instead of starting to beg.
I have seen white men and women
with university degrees
leaving the country
in numbers that are more than a million
to find a place to have a life
somewhere else in a foreign country,
I have waited for more than a hour queuing
at a local bank to make a cash deposit,
as a payment to someone
and the way that things are going,
with the black economic empowerment
and people not up to doing a simple job,
soon all of private industry
will be falling apart
as the government departments are doing.
I have noticed friends and family members
who were robbed, hijacked in their vehicles,
raped, tortured and killed
while the South African Police
did their very best to make a arrest
and like in all other things
are not up to it.
I know people who live in despair,
who are totally without hope
while the country’s borders
are flung wide open
to the rest of Africa
to first have a chance at a job
and their degrees and experience
in the face of this means nothing
but not one does bend
under the black heel to submission,
at the mercy of God
their lives go on…
[Reference: “Submission” by Don Mattera.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Peace Save The World.
Innocency is suffering
Peace save my world
Begging you my God
Send us your angels to protect the world
Look at my earth
Innocent souls are crying
Please send your angels to protect our world
Peace come our side
May somehow you can find the way
To enter and ease those angry souls.
To stop harming, beating and destroying
Peace enter all hearts
Can't you see all these pains and hurts?
Innocent people are dying,
Poor mothers are crying
Please stop destroying,
Our beautiful earth.
Purity is weeping
Kids are hungry crying
Young men are dying
And my heart is bleeding
The poverty is surrounding
All the world are suffering
Stop killing and destroying
where are you going
With all these hurtings
Stop blood bath!
Stop the wars!
Peace come to our world.
poem by Sossi Khachadourian
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Billy Joel's Innocent Man
(for a friend somewhere, i am dedicating this song)
Some people stay far away from the door
If there's a chance of it opening up
They hear a voice in the hall outside
And hope that it just passes by
Some people live with the fear of a touch
And the anger of having been a fool
They will not listen to anyone
So nobody tells them a lie
I know you're only protecting yourself
I know you're thinking of somebody else
Someone who hurt you
But I'm not above
Making up for the love
You've been denying you could ever feel
I'm not above doing anything
To restore your faith if I can
Some people see through the eyes of the old
Before they ever get a look at the young
I'm only willing to hear you cry
Because I am an innocent man
I am an innocent man
Oh yes I am
Some people say they will never believe
Another promise they hear in the dark
Because they only remember too well
They heard somebody tell them before
Some people sleep all alone every night
Instead of taking a lover to bed
Some people find that it's easier to hate
Than to wait anymore
I know you don't want to hear what I say
I know you're gonna keep turning away
But I've been there and if I can survive
I can keep you alive
I'm not above going through it again
I've not above being cool for a while
If you're cruel to me
I'll understand
Some people run from a possible fight
Some people figure they can never win
And although this is a fight I can lose
The accused is an innocent man
I am an innocent man
Oh yes I am
An innocent man
You know you only hurt yourself out of spite
I guess you'd rather be a martyr tonight
That's your decision
But I'm not below
Anybody I know
If there's a chance of resurrecting a love
I'm not above going back to the start
To find out where the heartache began
Some people hope for a miracle cure
Some people just accept the world as it is
But I'm not willing to lay down and die
Because I am an innocent man
I am an innocent man
Oh yes
I am
An innocent man
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I saw children
I saw children
smoking Marijuana
and taking crack cocaine
and injecting heroine
and the government
opened the borders
and more criminals
streamed in
from all over Africa
and the law
looked the other way.
I saw children
smoking Marijuana
and taking crack cocaine
and injecting heroine
and they did not want to be helped
and escaped from rehabilitation
and made as if they were cured
and they robbed
and broke in to houses
and whored
and lied
and some died.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Roseville
Since All Of My Remembering
Of Times So Innocent And So Clean
These Images Rush In With A Roar
Of Times And Acts That Were A Horror
My Folks Moved To Roseville When We Were So Young
To Protect Us From The Hazards Of A World Gone Wrong
Little Did They Know What A Mess They've Made
By Moving Us Out Here A Price Would Be Paid
A Childhood Spent Having Innocent Fun
Between 5 And Eight With My Friends We'd Run
Playing In The Fields Across The Street
Little Did We Know Just What We'd Meet
Older Boys Came Along Just To Play With Us
Spinning Us Around, Beneath Our Skirts With Thrusts
Diddling All Around In Between Our Legs
Little Did We Know We Were Being Pegged
They Would Fumble Here And Grumble There
Unzipping Their Old Trousers Just To Have A Share
Being Little Girls, What All Did We Know
We'd Just Play Along Until They Would Go
This Type Of Thing Went On Every Spring Til Fall
We'd Be Wondering What They Were Doing At All
We Were Happy That They Would Take Time With Us
We Were Just So Young What Was All The Fuss
Then One Day A Big Brother Of My Friend Appeared
Said To The Other Older Boy's "Hands Off My Sisters, Hear? "
In My Mind It All Then Became Oh So Clear
That These Older Boys Were Just Being Queer
The Next Time That They All Came Running Around
I Said I Don't Like The Way You Want To Play Around
But They Didn't Listen All And Penetrated My Best Friend
I Ran As Fast As I Could Hoping It Would End
But I Was Chased And That Raji Did Say
Don't Tell Anyone As I Ran Away
But I Cut My Foot To The Bone So Cruel
Being So Innocent, Didn't Know What To Do
Didn't Tell My Mom, Didn't Tell My Dad
I Was So Ashamed That I'd Been So Had
How Could Playing Around Turn To Something So Foul
So I Wrapped My Foot And Began To Howl
Did This Kind Of Thing Happen Everywhere
With Everyone Around, Not Even Saying Whats Fair
We Believed In The Justice Of Living Out A Good Life
How Could So Much Go Wrong And Cause So Much Strife
Living In Roseville Did Mess Up My Head
With So Many Queer Folk Boys And Men So Dead
To The Rights And The Thoughts Of What's All Good And Fair
With Their Pedophilic Actions To Do Such Wrong Down There
These Are My Images Of Growing Up So Serene
And Protected From The Filth Of Detroit And That Scene
What A Joke Now Do I So Realize
That Living In Roseville Was Just A Cradle Of Lies
poem by Talile Ali
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A few Words to Malala of Pakistan
The world needs more young boys and girls like you.
I pray God to protect you, under his divine shield,
And to grant you a long life. You are among a few,
Who are not afraid to tell the truth. The field
Is in dire need of serious drops of rain.
Education is the key for a better life for all God's children.
Malala, you are the angel of hope,
That our world yearns for. You are brave,
And with the help of God, the brainless slave,
Who shot you, will not succeed. The Pope,
The silent majority, and many world leaders support you.
The world needs more young and fresh minds like you.
You are an inspiration to all people with common sense.
The force of darkness and evil cannot silence
Such a wonderful inspiring angel like you.
You are right, all young people need to be educated, not a very few.
The world needs more young boys and girls like you.
poem by Hebert Logerie
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Dear Africa
Dear Africa a land sweeter than honey
A land that is renowned for its richness
But things have changed, the color of the land has turn bloody
Both young and old, men and women yearn for calmness.
The greeness of the land, the beauty of its culture oh Africa what a beautiful milieu.
Your kindness and hospitality has being used against you
Your inhabitants, your people have being used and enslaved
Working in the plantations, train railways, and mines and they are still slaved.
Africa you could have being the most powerful continent in the world.
But its like this was not meant to be
Your people can't still find rest, because of greener pasture and slavery They whirled around the world.
forgetting what they left behind, the beauty of the forest, people say its herby.
The wars, the fighting, they give us guns and ask us to kill one another
We slice, slaughter, cut eachother as if we are butchers.
Africa your people have suffered badly
some say its because of the idol worship but Africa has changed lately.
There is still a question that is yet to be answered
why is Africa still not united?
They say our leaders are corrupt
If its so then they have to stop because the continent is now bankrupt.
Racism, injustice, brutality oh africa what haven't you seen
the people, the society have suffered and are still suffering oh God what a life of insanity.
They have robbed us of what is rightfully ours
why is society so unfair to us.
We don't know about the next world
but if God is as fair as people say then our suffering wont be in vain in The next world
If things still persist then lets pray for the end of the world each day.
WE LOVE YOU AFRICA
poem by MASIREH sanyang
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Pretoria
I look at a city,
a city once modern, new
and progressive, the cultural centre
of a nation
but now poverty
and mismanagement
is taking its toll.
Where ten years back
people could live in its apartments
now is a ghetto,
with prostitutes on the street,
primitive men urinating against buildings
and teenagers walking with ghetto-blasters
playing music at full volume.
Where at traffic lights
windows are smashed with bricks
and valuables are stolen,
parked cars are taken,
where cars are hijacked
with the barrel of a gun
and cars are even stripped
at the police grounds.
A capital city in a country
that has thrown its borders
wide open to the rest of Africa
and every criminal
has headed there
and gangsters live in paradise
but in the suburbs
people still are making a living
in fortresses guarded by dogs
and security devices,
with panic buttons
for the nearest rent a cop
and people still pray
and go to work and play
as if crime is the norm
and the inadequacy
of the new government
doesn’t really matter.
poem by Gert Strydom
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People from a world corner
The worst poverty in the world
The worst discrimination in the world
While people thinking about Global Warming
Corner people thinking how to survive
Corner people struggling one day by one day
While people living in the rocket age
Corner people walking miles to miles for one day survive
Corner people surprising whenever a plane is flying
While people thinking about living on other planets
Corner people crying to get a four feet square area
Corner people watering their blood for a four feet squares area
While people thinking about homosexual marriage
Corner people giving their lives for saving their children
Corner people growing never ever seeing their parents
While people thinking about which food is the best in the world
Corner people running thousand miles to get a few rice
Corner people dying lack of food and water
While people thinking about legalization of prostitution
Corner people not knowing what is the law
Corner people never seeing decided by a just justice
Corner people are not people!
Corner people are not from this world!
I would wonder............
poem by Zaw Myat Htoo
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Notes About The Situation In Our Country
(in answer to Johan Steyn)
I. In the times that we live
In the times that we live
darkness sometimes gets the upper hand,
with tragic things happing in this country
while we still strive for a better place
we go into a life
where innocence is missing and we are off guard
stripped from opportunities and halfway beached
where we have to live in the bustle
where people are killed, tortured and robbed,
where the ruling party is singing inciting songs,
where we cannot decide on a plan of action
and even being humane is curtailed
while the harsh reality penetrates
that alone we cannot stop the overwhelming enemies.
II. During the night we hide in yards that are wired with electricity
During the night we hide in yards that are wired with electricity,
behind walls and steel palisades,
taking notice of the neighbourhood,
making daily adjustments to our lives
and when car hijackers strike at us on the road
we pray and hope to survive,
we let them just go on
while we are dumfounded by fear
and some of our family members and friends are tortured to death,
are raped and robbed while the police cannot stop these crimes,
but we encourage each other and tell one another
that every thing is all right and things are totally out of control,
but Satanists behead people
and there are criminals walk away from raping children.
III. People of our friends and family with qualifications are without work
People of our friends and family with qualifications are without work,
while it is now almost impossible to find something,
with jobs being restricted to black people by affirmative action
and so time passes, years pass
while impoverishment sneak in among white people,
with people begging and looking after cars on the street,
with hundreds of uneducated people getting jobs
and somewhere everything honourable
has been lost with time
while misfortune and decline is appearing everywhere,
we hear about the wretched lives of others,
people come with a confession
that life has caught them off guard,
with their existence only hanging on a thin thread.
IV. When we laugh it only hides bitterness
When we laugh it only hides bitterness
the blue sky, flowers in our gardens pass us,
we hear of some more Afrikaners dying on farms
and in towns and slowly but certainly the destruction spreads.
Out of despair husbands kill their whole families and themselves
(shot after shot resounds)
from them who still have firearms,
after the new laws.
The black government is afraid, that we will resist them
and arrests people left, right and centre
who they see as terrorists
and hold them forever and a day
while the planters of bombs
sit blessed in parliament.
V. There are some people that lay their hands on liquor
There are some people that lay their hands on liquor
and live as if everything is just for today,
they fornicate with the wives of others,
trampling their own people into the ground,
walk over each other to get somewhere in life
or to chase after money
and we live in times of great darkness
where love for the fellow man, awe and respect are missing
where children bear false witness against their parents,
(when they themselves do criminal deeds) ,
turning against their own culture, people and even religion,
using drugs, are fornicating while at school
and overnight our world has changed
to a place where crime and darkness has the upper hand.
VI. Even God is on sale
Even God is on sale
and people jump up and down in churches,
trying to feel the presence of God
in a experience religion
where everyone places his own things in the trolley
as it fits him,
grouping around somewhat in darkness
forgetting to consult the Holy Bible,
Jesus Christ is declared to be only human
and a relationship with him
by some is seen as absurdity
that only people with superstition do
and some wants to trample Satan himself under their shoes
while he is walking free next to them.
VII. Now we wonder from where this decay comes?
Now we wonder form where this decay comes,
while our world suddenly is turned upside down?
With the new government the school structure has been changed,
the cane has disappeared from the classroom, respect has walked out
and religion, the trust in an almighty God,
an own culture, the urge to follow own values,
to speak our own language and to retain a own identity
and the commandments of God has been systematically substituted
by human rights, children’s rights and the following
of a science where humans through theosophy
and new age doctrines are seen as equal to God
where man becomes a god in himself
and now suddenly we see darkness
when the darkness and decay is everywhere.
VIII. We cannot exist in darkness
We cannot exist in darkness,
we have the witness of our fathers, from a time when escape was impossible,
where God in a covenant Himself stood with them
and still everyone is protected by the mighty hand of God,
He draws His laager around everyone that fears Him,
who faithfully keep to the words of His holy word
and still we have got to be brave
in this time where we witness the destruction of our brothers
as God Himself stays true,
His kingdom cannot waver or crumble,
even when the thickest darkness folds around us,
nothing can wheedle us away
from the salvation that God is going to bring,
even if it looks as if darkness is stretching wider and wider.
[Reference: Kanttekeninge by ‘n vers van Brecht (Marginal notes at a verse of Brecht) by Johan Steyn.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Black & White
Stick to your guns
Diamonds are a girls best friend
Nobody knows the trouble this poor boys seen
People will believe anything
Man on the run
Always gets it in the end
Nobody cares cause nobody shares his dream
People dont believe anything
Everything is changed
Everything is still the same
Its just a part of the game
Blood on the moon
Patterns running across the floor
A musical inside a movie inside a dream
Guess you can believe anything
Everything is changed
Everything is still the same
Its all a part of the game
Mama, papa, boys, and girls
Holding hands around the world
Wrong is wrong and right is right
Nothing changes overnight
Ill believe it when I see it in black and white
Tell me the truth
Nobody leaves here alive
In the black core of doubt
Trying to get out in the light
Sometimes you cant see anything
Everyone is changed
Everyone is still the same
They cant get out of the game
song performed by by Todd Rundgren
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Universal World
I hate to say that I haven't found one universal world that doesn't have Any criwes or war
But I feel that everybody wants the piece of the action even when it comes to war
When you are inthe war you are killing people
And all the people died like flies
But the truth was that God made the universal world so that people can
Live in that
But what do we do to the universal word?
We destroy it with bombs and bullets from guns
And sometimes we evenkill the innocent children of the universal World
And let me as you all a thing?
How can you sleep at night knowing that in the war you killed that innocent child that belonged to the universal world
And the parents of that innocent child prays to God for mercy
And they grieve for thir son who died in this brutal war
I speak against war
And I know now it is the time to come together and united the world
Lets choose peace and not war
poem by Aldo Kraas
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The Children Of Poverty Street
At least spare a thought for the children the children of Poverty Street
They are homeless as young teenagers and against the odds they must compete
Their parents serving time for robbery and narcotic offences and most of their role models in jail
Their circumstance of birth is a huge mark against them the poor young people destined to fail.
They steal for to buy food, drugs and alcohol on Poverty Street life is tough
Too young much too young to be homeless without shelter and sleeping rough
They are pushed to the social fringes the young people society disown
Ignored by the Government Bureaucracies and to the Police only known.
Who could envy them their existence those born into cruel circumstance
The Gods are completely against them of success they do not stand a chance
For them life is such a great battle they must battle their ghosts of despair
They don't even dream of the good life to them life is very unfair.
You who waffle on of life's choices with you talk is always so cheap
Bet you were not homeless at thirteen and on a park bench had to sleep
You would not talk of life's choices if you had to steal for to eat
If you felt alone and abandoned like the children of Poverty Street.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Lost In A Lost World
I woke today, I was crying
Lost in a lost world
So many people are dying
Lost in a lost world
Some of them are living an illusion
Bounded by the darkness of their minds
In their eyes its nation, against nation, against nation
With racial pride
Sounds...
Thinking only of themselves
They shun the light
(shun the light)
They think theyre right
(think theyre right)
Living in their empty shells
Oh, can you see their bodies thrashing
(so many people, so many people)
Crashing down around their feet
Angry people in the street
Telling them theyve had their fill
Of politics, people who kill
Grow... the seed of evolution
(so many people, so many people)
Revolution everyone
Its just another form of gun
To do again what they have done
Let all our brothers come and get some
(so many people, so many people)
Everywhere you go you see them searching
Everywhere you turn you feel the pain
Everyone is looking for the answers
Well look again, come on my friend
Love will find us in the end
Come on my friend
(on my friend)
Weve got to bend
(got to bend)
Down on our knees and say a prayer
Oh, can you see the world is pining
(so many people, so many people)
Pining for someone who really cares enough to share his love
With all of us so we can be
An ever loving family
Have we forgotten who loves who
(so many people, so many people)
Children from a family tree
Thats longer than a centipede
Started long ago when you and i
Where only love....
(so many people, so many people)
I woke today, I was crying
Lost in a lost world
So many people are dying
Lost in a lost world
So many people, so many people
People lost in a lost world
So many people, so many people
People lost in a lost world
song performed by by Moody Blues
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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War poet
They who do not themselves fight the battle,
who err as mere humans
has got the power to call up boys
with innocent noble ideals
and dreams
to change their lives radically,
in their humanity, in their existence
and to change from alive and well
to dead and wounded
and then every white young man was forced
to go to jail
or to conceded to duty for the country
and to defend the place of unrighteousness
against something much worse, something more evil and grievous
and what poet has got the ability
to show the way
to the instigators of war?
In our human haste we only see
small parts of the much bigger whole,
not how every thing, every facet
of struggle of life playing off here fits into it
and to me a pen is given
to write only what I experience,
how I meet with it
and even at times I am far too near to the battle
am blinded, blinded by national pride
and self conceit, to look further than my own existence
and moral values,
that which are actually right and noble,
are only determined by God
who with great justice sit on His throne.
In my war poems, experiences
of noble young men are expressed
who were forced to stand,
had to kill others to stay alive,
without any other choice
who revealed heroism
but was not compensated for it,
who was true and faithful to their task,
although they did not view it as noble
respectable or good
and some even gave their lives
as sacrifices, for all the people of their country.
[References: The hand that signed the paper by Dylan Thomas, Where are the War Poets? by C. Day Lewis, War Poet by Sidney Keyes, On Being Asked for a War Poem by W.B. Yeats en War Poet by Donald Bain.]
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Livin' In A World
Children are called the future of an adult world
They are born with spirits so innocent
Til we teach them how to hate
Add to the world's confusion
We teach our kids rules
That we don't adhere to ourselves
Right or wrong
What example can they take
The people we learn from
Forge the ideas we become
Living in a world they didn't make
Living in a world that's filled with hate
Living in a world where grown-ups break the rules
Living in a world they didn't make
Paying for a lot of adult mistakes
How much of this madness can they take
Our children
Children grow to become our young adults
Problems of the world
They must learn how to confront
Doing drugs and joining gangs to rebel
Colors show they belong
To the social override
Cause they're living in a space
They feel out of place
Living in a world they didn't make
Living in a world that's filled with hate
Living in a world where grown-ups break the rules
Living in a world they didn't make
Paying for a lot of adult mistakes
How much of this madness can they take
Our children
song performed by by Janet Jackson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Innocent White Civilian People Were Slaughtered (In Answer To Don Mattera)
Innocent white civilian people were once walking
on Church Street in Pretoria; they were men,
women and children
busy with their daily lives,
some just having gone shopping,
some meeting a loved one in a restaurant
others returning from school
and they were doing nobody any harm.
By orders of Nelson Rolilahla Dalinbunga Mandela,
without any kind of alarm or warning,
a car bomb was set and exploded thundering
throwing shrapnel, making glass fall like rain
and black people took pride
at the sheer slaughter, at the falling,
the maiming, the decimating and dying of innocents
and that day remains a bitter thing.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A War Raging On
There's a war raging on
Though I know not where
There are people fighting
Though they do not care
Soldiers are fighting
Mothers are crying
Fathers are preaching
For their sons are dying,
For their is a war killing
And no one really cares.
There's bullets shooting
As I see the guns loading
And there's planes flying
For I feel the bombs exploding,
I see war and I see blood
And death upon the sand
There's hunger and death
I still see in His hand,
For there's people killing
As I see the blood flowing.
There's soldiers marching
For I hear them coming
The killing is flowing
For I see the children running,
There are people being shot
Poets getting caught
Murderers being sought
Lessons again being taught,
For there is a war raging
As the soldiers are hunting.
There is a war coming
For I hear the horns blowing
There is more killing coming
For I see the hate growing,
Children are getting killed
Burying bombs in the fields
Land is being destroyed
Mountains are becoming hills,
For there is a war coming
For I see the hate showing.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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