From the Editors Desk

WHR August 2014

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

CIVILISATION, WAR, SAVAGERY

BY

SUSUMU TAKIGUCHI

giving birth

to a monster, after

Little Boy

pleasurable sunday flying…

rudely interrupted: the unknown

attacking squadron

golf balls

not reaching the incoming

A6M2 Model 21 Zeros

the winter surprise attack…

preceded by a secret plan to launch

summer surprise attacks on Japan

keep your enemy

guessing…any attack will be

a surprise

USS Hornet,

releasing hornets for revenge air raid

on Tokyo

the Japanese,

stunned by the dare-devil Doolittle,

did little to respond

much better

do enemies know than

you think

truth, however,

may never come out as

we all bury it

digging the truth…

not popular at all in

peace time

hiding truth…

the topmost duty in the topsy-turvy

wartime

truth…

the only hope, getting no chance

to be ours

fire for lunch,

suddenly blown out

by a giant fireball

an eye for an eye…

Fat Man joined Little Boy

for utter destruction

no green grass,

prediction went to say, would grow

ah! but it did

the new generation,

replacing the old, would shape

the new world to come

peace will

return where the situation looks

hopeless

old enemies

walk side by side along

the railway grass

old hatred

and new friendship cohabit: deep in

the war veteran’s mind

new hatred

and old misunderstanding intermingle: the birth

of new internecine war

the common recipe

to cook war after war in

perpetual repetition

sports ground

and picnic sites all turning

to killing fields

genocide…

nothing has changed since

time immemorial

under the beautiful name

of beautiful concepts, ugly

atrocities repeated

religious wars,

preserve not of ancient history: then,

who creates them?

money grabber, land grabber,

fame grabber, woman grabber, power grabber…

no end of causes of war

civilisation, just so…

savagery of us humans

remains untameable

a mother’s face…

showing nothing more

to lose in the rubble

a baby’s face…

a tale of all the events of its life

snatched

every war

comes and goes, but war itself

never will

causes of war…

all within us and perpetual till

the end of time

if we seriously wish to end

all wars, we shall need to wage wars

together, to end us all