Let Go Of War

by Carey Lenehan

Burn the guns, diffuse the bombs
Turn them into useful things for those they have wronged,
metal legs for the dismembered
coffins for the dead.
Craft the bullets into
little metal hands
for the depleted uranium children born without,
for the hacked and blasted babies
whose fingers lie in the rubble of hatred,
alongside
their futures

Take the gunbelts and the marching boots
melt down the knives and the bayonets to create
wheelchairs for the broken,
shelters for the dispossessed.
Recalibrate the munitions machines, set them to sculpture
To the creation of beauty
so that we can enjoy a world uplifting
not this maelstrom of blood
and dust
and broken bones

Fabricate a reality free
from needless aggression and political posturing,
from the poisonous gases
and the biological threats
Turn minds
trained to kill
toward the art of reconstruction and atonement
towards enlightenment and hope
so we might
learn how to love each other
and all that lives upon this world.

Let go of War.
And then we can truly call ourselves
Civilised

November 30, 2011. Tags: Afghanistan, american imperialism, biological weapons, british imperialism, contamination, depleted uranium, insurgency, iraq, nuclear threat, pakistan nuclear threat, radiation, stop the war, US foreign policy, war, War on Terror. anti-war, children, current events, environment, life, political poetry, political writing, politics, war poetry, writing.