This is a poem/song that I wrote for my English Language and Lit Coursework. I hope you find it adequate. It is inspired by all the crap that has been going on with ISIS and Boko Haram and the Taliban. But it is also inspired by the inner conflicts that occur in our heads every day, every second. That really .... nothing changes.
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Constant pain with no gain
Anger so severe, beware
Lives kidnapped for the whims of selfishness
Facing danger for the sake of selfish wishes
A call or knock sets off tears
Setting off their fears
Cries and pleas and protest get ignored
Politicians and monarchs all look bored
If only they had children out there fighting
Then they would understand the braying
Then they would understand the aching
Then they would understand the praying
But they have no idea
They’re as unfeeling as generals from the Great War era
Look at history
It’s the same old story
The poppy sprouts new
Mourning them, mourning me, mourning you
Blood drips to the ground of this real life Camlann
Sows the seeds into the lands of no man
The poppy’s petals becoming redder and redder
Wanting life to become kinder and better
The poisons keep on growing
The poppy’s hurting
Nature’s suffering
From what we are doing
Look at history
It’s the same old story
Since the world’s been turning
The fire’s been burning
We never learn
We always make a U-turn
We don’t try to calm it
We don’t try to fight it
The pattern we can’t defeat
We’re placed on repeat
This is no way we should be living
Look at history
It’s the same old story
Words lost long ago
Whisper in the wind as it wails
Words of spite and doubt, fear and dread
Get hammered in with nails
In our mind and head
It seems as though
Even though we see it everywhere
We no longer feel
We no longer care
We keep hitting the repeat button
Look at history
It’s the same old story
Don’t let us be the womb that bears the fruit of war
For sooner or later, it will coming knock at our door
We have the choice to open it or leave it closed
But the days of old keep coming back
Our minds they take and attack
We can’t free ourselves
We can’t bottle them and put them on shelves
The shades and phantoms of the past haunt us
Possess and warp our minds, driving us
We don’t try to learn from them
We repeat the mistakes they made
Look at history
It’s the same old story
We see enemies where ever we go
We turn them and others into stone
Our worry and paranoia turning our minds into hissing snakes
Just a few words, is what it takes
To ensure that, Erebus opens his doors
Hateful Moros
Spiteful Ker
Hard-hearted Eris
Painful Oizys
Bare Momos
Sneaky Nemesis
Take hold of human vanity
Take hold of human sanity
They pave the way
For Ares to strike
For Philotes to be forgotten
For Apate to hinder Nike
Achlys sows her poisons rotten
Melinoe awaits her new soldiers
We create a ceaseless death penalty
Look at history
It’s the same old story
Our souls squirm and twist
The mind they try to resist
But Ares and Eris persist
Look upon thy neighbour
Ignore the little details you know
Ignore nationality, gender, age, nationality, body-colour
Tell me what difference you really see
Tell me what makes you so much better
Tell me how you can justify your misbehaviour
Tell me when you started to become an abandoner
An abandoner to your own race, to your own kind
Ignore nationality, gender, age, nationality, body-colour
Understand each other
Turn your Sekhmet into Hathor
Realise one person’s carrot is another person’s potato
But some of us have lost this ability altogether
Look at history
It’s the same old story
We meet Hecate at the crossroads, every day
She gives us our choices and chances – loads
We have the choice to go
On or go back, or to change direction completely
To those who choose correctly – bestows prosperity
To those who do not – to Soteira they should pray
Phthonos waits for this trip up and takes advantage
Disguises himself as Eros and creates carnage
Leaving us to clear up all the damage
Start looking for him and take him down
See the good not the bad
Wear a smile, not a frown
Tears form in my eyes
But I don’t cry
It would not do any good at all
Not with everyone behind that wall
Protest without spilling blood yourself
Look at history
It’s the same old story
Make love not war
Destroy enemies by making them friends
Do we listen to ourselves at all
We don’t have the right to make the call
We don’t have the right to pass judgement
On whether one can live or die
We are not the gods
We are not God
We are not Allah
That is our problem, our issue
We should not deify
We are all mortal not divine
Lives wasted while others cry and use up a tissue roll
No one can see peace when they’ve seen war
Look at history
It’s the same old story