Month: November 2022

We’ve Been Fooled

We’ve been fooled

                By years of peace

                                Where the rumble of war

Was distant;

                Where missiles and bombs

                                Fall on brown-skinned folk

                                                In lands that are poor.

We’ve been lulled

                Through days of prosperity

                                And calm,

                                                Distant from guts and gore,

Into believing

                That trade and civilisation

                                Are the new law,

And war was consigned

                To history;

                                A despicable artefact

                                                Never to darken our door,

Once more.

Opher – 21.4.2022

We’ve opened up the world and mixed with all people and cultures. We have discovered that we can get along with everyone. We are all the same.

We have united cultures and countries through commerce and travel.

The terrible wars always seem consigned to poor countries full of people who were not like us. It was terrible but distant.

It could never happen to us.

But have we underestimated the terrible human flaws – the paranoia, the greed, the lust for power and the fear?  

Was civilisation a band-aid over a gaping wound?

Have we underestimated the human propensity for violence and cruelty???