Your Men Are Cascading

Your men are cascading,
Oh widows of war,
Cascading away from you and
Out of your arms and your lives

They are left alone drowning in the streets
With the blood of our sins on their hands
Your sons and brothers,
Are merely the dead without names
Soulless wanderers through our minefields

We write now not of our loves, but our flaws
Our losses our pain
Our unfulfillable longing our fears
We write of the wars we will never win

We write for the days when
There's nothing we can do
But watch our sons die in fields we’ve never seen
We write as the sadness overwhelms us with
A deadly grip on our convictions

We write of words that have no meaning,
We write of leaders with no sense of truth
We write of the best of men
and the worst of lies.

We write of the cascade of lives
The constant avoidable mixing of our morality
into the cesspool of inhumanity

Your men are cascading,

Oh widows of war

We write because we can no longer

Suffer your sorrows in silence.

Reviews

[katie]

This reminds me of "War is Kind" by Stephen Crane. Almost seems like you expanded on his poem unintentionally. This is an incredible read. Your work is full of powerful imagery and strong emotion. I love the third stanza. (My phone won't let me copy and paste.) It hits you with the last line: "We write of the wars we'll never win." Each stanza is more powerful than the last. I feel like this should be broadcast as an anti-war message. Maybe it would get people thinking. As always, great work!

[daninstockholm]

Katie, my apologies for taking so long to respond. An enormous thank you for such a kind review. I love Stephen Crane and that poem,, so I appreciate your reference very much. I am honored by such high praise.

[katie]

No worries! Life gets in the way all the time! :) You're incredibly welcome!

[Mercy Fae]

War should be avoided at all costs, and truly, if our country has nothing to do with another country's conflict, we should stay out of it.

War is too taxing to keep going in to, but sometimes peace can't be attained without some type of force.

[daninstockholm]

Thank you so much for reading, I truly appreciate it!

[Terpsichore]

War is an abomination in which there are no winners and the death of just one innocent is one to many.

I have seen it close up and personal and know that the loss remains as long as memory does.

T

[daninstockholm]

Thank you so for stopping by. I appreciate your kindness very much.

[...]

Words go very deep. Inside of meaning life. All go well together like words and meaning and flowing. Absolutly great.

[daninstockholm]

You honor me, Marketa, truly. Thank you so very much for your kindness! I always appreciate when you stop by!

[KWP]

and then a few weeks and months pass and the rest of the world forgets while those with a loss of loved ones a left to morn each day, just passing time and picking up the pieces before they too say goodbye to this world - which often seems so futile when we humans treat it with such disrespect X

[daninstockholm]

yes, others pain is so easy to pass by, forget, or to pretend it never happened. thank you for your kind words!

[Kelly Scheppers]

A litany of war so well versed. I like how you revised it, Dan...very much! May we never become so complacent that we are numb to words that evoke emotion!

My best,
Kelly

[daninstockholm]

Thank you so much, Kelly!! I too like the amendments, I think that it solved the "cliche" problem well. I was worried that it would seem to be 2 separate poems, but the ending tied it together, I think, or i hope.. haha.. Any way,, thank you very much! I always appreciate it when you stop by.

[Kelly Scheppers]

...my pleasure, Dan!