To be Against War is
Not enough: it is hardly a Beginning!²
We must Fight till we conquer
In ourselves—what causes war.³
We must all their ammunition and
Feats of war Defeat with our plain
Heroic magnitude of Mind!⁴
Love & Poetry win forever.
War is a great big lose. I am a Poet and
A Lover and a Winner—how about you?⁵
We henceforth exalt the name of Peace
And Leave those rusty wars that eat the Soul—
Write the holy name of Peace and set it
On high where none can pluck it down.⁶
I write twenty lines about Love and
The siege withdraws twenty meters.⁷
I Dream I see bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky and
They are turning into Butterflies.⁸
The high ideals for which we kill one another—
Are empty & abstract substitutes for the
Unheeded Miracles that surround us!⁹
And the people in the streets shall
Dance round and round—and
Their guns & uniforms shall
Scatter to the ground …¹⁰
¹ Jorge Rebelo, Come Brother and Tell Me Your Life
² Muriel Rukeyser, The Life of Poetry
³ Marianne Moore, In Distrust of Merits
⁴ John Milton, Samson Agonistes
⁵ Philip Whalen, “Dear Mr. President”
⁶ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Casa Guidi Windows
⁷ Mahmoud Darwish tr. Fady Joudah, A State of Siege
⁸ Joni Mitchell, Woodstock
⁹ Alan Watts, This Is It
¹⁰ Ed McCurdy, Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream