what is this place, with its defensive bunkers on every rise? lasting vestiges of war, so unlike my childhood home.
Pillbox Kitsch [Tanka]
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Tag Archives: war
The Futility of War [Haiku]
two young gazelles lock horns and head-wrestle, then quit and move on.
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Scarecrow [Free Verse]
Scarecrow, n. - that which exists
solely to evoke fear.
There are so many scarecrows:
global - the end of the world
as we know it.
societal - the end of the tribe
as we know it.
individual - scarecrows of the soul.
Scarecrows lead us into the worst
versions of ourselves:
The one who's stressed, and mean
because of it.
The one who imagines conspiracy
around every corner.
The one who sees threat in every
change & in every difference.
The one who wants an orderly world
of people just like themselves -
familiar, cozy, and lacking surprises.
Scarecrows even march us off to war,
and war should be the scariest state
imaginable --
death doled out on a random basis.
War should be the scariest, but terrible certainties
spur less fear than any old uncertainty.
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Metaphor & Misnomer [Free Verse]
"in the trenches" what a circuit that phrase has taken: from the Western Front of World War I, where the trenches were cold, claustrophobic places of mud and creeping mustard gas; harbor & prison for shell-shocked souls at wit's end to become used by businesspeople & politicians to describe metaphorical fights... but there are no metaphorical fights, they should be called metaphorical games games have winners & losers, but not the living & the dead & the dying & the disabled & the permanently disturbed it feels like a frivolous bit of linguistic creep as fighters now stand on cold, wet feet in muddy trenches in Eastern Ukraine talk of salespeople or grassroots political organizers as "in the trenches" misses the point that everyone in trenches is a soldier -- be they a salesperson in the metaphorical "trenches" of calmer days.
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War [Haiku]
war is in the wind; i hear its shrill grinding, but can't tell from where.
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Fields of the Dead [Free Verse]
It's a beautiful day
in the graveyard.
Blue skies.
Cool, but not cold.
The ideal temperature
to be an overdressed military man.
Do ghosts amble among the stones
on days like these?
I imagine most of these men died
on quite different kinds of days:
Rainy, cold, muddy days.
Muggy, buggy, malarial days.
The kind of day that just won't end,
but to fold into a sleepless night.
How many died,
not from spall or Minié balls,
but because they just didn't have the will
to drag themselves through another day?
from exhaustion?
from demoralization?
How many died under beautiful blue skies
on an idyllic autumn day?
I don't know whether
there're good days to die,
and even less whether
there're good days to be dead.
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Dogs of War [Lyric Poem]
The dogs of war are slipping. The ropes they are a ripping. The palms they are a bleeding, as citizens are reading of risks that led to slippage: of quips and of equipage, and how it wasn't expected, and courses were corrected, but still it all goes wrong.
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DAILY PHOTO: Indian Weapon Display
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BOOK REVIEW: Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction by Damien Keown
Buddhist Ethics: A Very Short Introduction by Damien KeownMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Most people, if they know anything about Buddhist ethics, have heard of the Eightfold Path (right + view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.) However, just knowing that can lead to the impression that Buddhist ethics are blurry and that it’s all a matter of doing as one pleases within one’s personal interpretation of rightness. This concise guide offers an overview of the Buddhist ethics and morality, focusing on issues of global and modern interest (as opposed to those issues only of interest in places where Buddhism is practiced or at the time in which Buddha was teaching – i.e. issues like abortion, vegetarianism, war, suicide, and cloning and not subjects like caste, traditional family roles, etc.)
The first two chapters present a broad overview, and the rest focus on particular ethical issues. I found the second chapter beneficial; it asks how Buddhist ethics fit in the categorization scheme employed by Western Philosophy. I considered it useful even though the answer was that Buddhist ethics aren’t neatly contained by this way of thinking, but rather can be seen as a mix of multiple approaches. (e.g. Buddhism has sets of precepts – ala deontology, has a karmic doctrine that is arguably consequentialist, and, also, has elements similar to the virtue ethics of ancient Greece.)
Chapters three through eight investigate specific issues: animal rights and environmental ethics (ch. 3,) sexuality and gender (ch. 4,) war and violence (ch. 5,) abortion (ch. 6,) suicide / euthanasia (ch. 7,) and upcoming technologies that will change what it means to be alive and conscious (i.e. cloning, artificial intelligence, cryogenics, and CRISPR.) As with chapter two, there’s often no tidy answer. For one thing, the author tries to contend with what is common across various sects, and this is often reflected in the laws of countries, laws which are only partially informed by Buddhist philosophy. Also, it’s not like the Buddha had anything to say on many of these issues, which either weren’t issues (e.g. cloning) or were considered radically differently (e.g. gender.) Still, one does get an idea of how these questions relate to ideas such as karma and dharma, and how contemporary Buddhist thinkers might begin to consider them.
One will note that there are ethical territories that aren’t addressed (e.g. justice / punishment, ethics of governance, business ethics, etc.,) but a brief guide needs filters, and this one chose to focus heavily on modern, individual ethical questions of broad international interest.
If you’re looking to better understand Buddhist ethics, this book is worth reading.
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The War Mangled [Free Verse]
I heard the dead children, their voices lilting on the wind. The war-torn twice born came crawling in under the wire, bloody and shell-shocked, but among the living, but the rest floated away: their words becoming both milder & more raucous, never fully drowned out by bombs or crossfire chaos.
