Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.
Steve Vinson
59 years old
Protested "the war" in the 60's. Dodged the draft (legally, just like Dick Cheney). Protesting the illegal war in Iraq. Will not support wars. Ever.
The Wounds: Then and Now
The Wound [1973]
Loosely swathed gauze Lets a spot come through; Where the blood seeps Around your matted hair Flies congregate in conference.
The rain swirls Around your muddy boots, Caught in a Hell’s hole Of the jungle loam Where the photographer found you, Clicking several times, Recording another victim Of the war.
He sold you for a cover For the magazines, So that the world, Like sympathetic dogs, Might lick at the wound.
May 1973 ---------------------------------------------- The Wound, 2008
Your death was sudden As the crash against the night Of the IED placed by the road, Your body a moment before was Theirs-- Son, Dearest, Daddy-- is Now a thousand drops of blood,splinters of bone/ Lost among the grains of pale sand.
You might as well have died Like the civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, blown to atomic bits Where and when the WMD’s were for real.
There are no photographs now, Where you are digitized and forgotten By the government of the people, by the people, for/ Now your number is as lost as abandoned hope At the gates of a too familiar hell.
