War & Peace

”War does not determine who is right – only who is left.”Bertrand Russell


Original DDE™ surrealistic art: “Weight of War” by: rob kistner © k10/24/23

 
War

my ruined eyes
crisp from the day’s cruel sun
burnt by devastation’s fires
scorched by images of relentless horror
blurred by stinging tears of sorrow

take refuge
in this late-evening rain
thick with battle smoke
falling heavy as a shroud

clinging
opaque
mercifully obscuring

I am sustained
by this damp pall
that descends cool upon me

wraps ‘round my pained countenance
fevered with fatigue
twisted with despair

drawn
by a faded memory of honor
a faint echo of duty
a frayed thread of human dignity

I’ve stumbled
collapsing here
broken by this sin I shoulder

not of my making
but of my charge

now my sin

unleashed by others
those above
those in warm dry offices
those removed

who would impose their delusions
to advance their selfish agenda

those who would rule the world



Original DDE™ surrealistic triptych: “The Brass”
by: rob kistner © 10/24/23

a world now broken
corrupted by their illusions
spoiled by their vanity

a world in chaos
as darkness deepens

this nocturne
I have but this ruin-riddled
highway of blood

of dying dreams
violated innocence
merciless destruction

of horrific death

this path of my duplicity
of my guilt
my shame

oh
for some water pure
to wash this unspeakable
from my eyes

but only the soot of death
is falling from the skies

and so
I stumble on
bent by the weight
of this falling evening

by the relentless weight
of this war
drowned in its drenching sorrow

my spirit hollow and empty
I slink exhausted
into this coming night

and
the next night

and
the night that follows
that always follows

captive on this road of murder
of brutal
human
arrogance

a prisoner
of this lost highway

seeking forgiveness


Original DDE™ surrealistic art: “Peace?”
by: rob kistner © 10/24/23

 
Peace

What is SO funny about peace love and understanding?

war is life out of balance
war is love out of balance
peace is life in balance
love is life in balance

life is balance
the keeping of it
the regaining of it
when lost

life is awesome
an experience of the profound

it is the mystery
we are not meant to solve

rather
to celebrate
with grace
and wonder

so wonder powerfully
and dream ferociously

let fly those dreams
from open arms
so promise’s winds
catch them to soar


Original DDE™ surrealistic art: “Love Set Free”
by: rob kistner © 10/26/23

bestow those dreams
wings of faith
to carry you
to wisdom’s shore

share those dreams
with an open mind
resonate truth
inspire others to be more

offer those dreams
in peace to all
in love to all
love is the door

the gateway
to the great mystery

love is all you need

in the end
the love you take
is the love you make

so share love
make love
love with great freedom
with great abandon
with gratitude
with the power of the spheres

just as the butterfly
lights upon the petal
so too
hold love
tenderly

love is the truth

love is the balance


Original DDE™ surrealistic art: “Love’s Elusive Butterfly”
by: rob kistner © 10/26/23

*
rob kistner © 2023

Poetry at: dVerse

 

34 thoughts on “War & Peace”

  1. I can feel that burden that we all have to carry as observers, I think the only thing we can do is not propagate hate… hard as it is

  2. The first poem I’ve read that’s from the point of view of a soldier, Rob, and it really got to me. The opening stanza is a sucker punch to the system and sets the tone for the rest. What a way to start my day!

  3. You have captured the horrific burden a soldier carries in all its rawness! A moving and powerful write. Thanks for joining in, Rob.

  4. An epic tale Rob, ending with the perfect line. Love is the balance. The father of my children spent a year in DaNang, wrote a letter each day which I bound into a book when he returned. Every now and then I pull it out, read what was happening each day in graphic detail as he wrote it. Sobering.

    1. Amazing that you did that Helen. It would be very sobering — and sadly we stupid humans still have not learned. Our baser tendencies continue to win out. If there is not peace for everyone — then there is no peace. Read what I wrote to Di above.

    1. Yes to you Grace — yes to you my friend. That is why I spent most of my adult life retreating to blessed wilderness. I could pretend there that the world was only this beauty peace and balance I beheld. Now that my health has made that escape impossible, I now feel the human cancer and madness — can’t escape it any longer. The news is more horrific than any horror story ever created. Peace & love — Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

  5. How dark and heavy the burden of war on a soldier who through their suffering hopes to bring about peace. The stark contrasts of the two are captured well here.

    1. Thank you Di… 🙂 …so so sad. I thought the world was fucked up in the 1960’s, as if the two World Wars hadn’t taught modern era humans ANYTHING — what is even more sad is, even with all these amazing technological advances, the world today is more fucked up than ever! We are moving further and further into a bizarre fractured isolation. This global mass of humanity is like a giant apple, rotten at the core. How stupid we are, children who never learn. Global upheaval is coming, and it will be far more horrific than either of the first two world wars — I feel the tension, the insanity growing. Humanity has created a seething dormant monster that we can’t control. I thank fate that I won’t see the final meltdown, but I hurt for my children’s children’s children. I also hope that perhaps maybe, just maybe, they will birth some kinda miracle’s miracle that turns this shipwreck around.

  6. your first poem hits hard. on what war does to those who are forced to fight. will the populace ever learn to say no to those asking us to kill for them. but is it ever possible for both sides to agree not to fight?

  7. The war-time soldier’s point of view, so bleak, so filled with despair, comes across with brutal honesty and a poet’s sympathy. The contrast with “Peace” is without irony and filled with a hope that only that soldier’s “nocturne … this ruin-riddled
    highway of blood” can bring about. This is the way the world is run by the profiteer and the politician. What a horror/reality you paint, Rob, with your words!

    1. Sadly Dora, so many people are raised by teaching or example to believe that war and killing are and inherent,, inevitable thread of the human psyche. Some even see it as honorable, even sacred. This readiness to consider maiming and organized murder as some kind of human right to solve “anything”, is so deep seeded in the species that to eradicate war is to eradicate the lower level species that condones it — namely, the current evolution of the human species… and that is horrific to consider, and should never have to happen… but …consider the human species as a whole — war, violence, and organized murder is obviously inherent. We as a species have not evolved above such stupidity. It breaks my heart, because I love being human, and unfortunately my personal human experience does, and apparently will continue to include war. All we enlightened civilized humans can do is band together to speak out, and hold tight to the hope that some future evolution of our human species will have evolved, as a whole, to a level that war becomes intolerable, even inconceivable. I hope that for my children’s children’s children that can somehow occur without a blindly self-inflictedj mass distinction to eliminate the current flawed version of us… but nature seems to find a way to cull ineffective life from this planet. Anyone who truly finds peace, love, and understanding an impossible, even laughable fairytale dream, or some kind of human weakness… they need to be honest enough with themselves to realize — they, and those like them, are part of the problem. I love them as part of my human family, but they are the children in this family that are the troublemakers.

  8. Rob, I’m certain every soldier has felt this:
    “drawn
    by a faded memory of honor
    a faint echo of duty
    a frayed thread of human dignity”
    and just as certain that it fades more with each passing day — until it is a phantom that will haunt the soldier for a lifetime.

  9. who would impose their delusions
    to advance their selfish agenda
    those who would rule the world

    Great poem. Rob, Love it! They pursue their ambitions (the first 2 lines) not bothered by flattening a civilisation and a populace of suffering peoples. What is worrying though will be the impending WWIII and the consequences that follow (the last line)

    Hank

  10. The myth that fighting has any benefit at all, that it has anything to do with righteous, honor, glory, this myth must die. Though of course that is in it, how can a human not dry to find some good, even in the middle of our ownmade horror? Yes love is the answer, the antidote, the balm. Love, and then love more! More broadly, more deeply, more fully.

    1. …and love more inclusively — though given circumstances of someone that seems to be evil, loving inclusively probably begs a caveat… but I am not certain exactly what that might be…

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