POETS AGAINST WAR, a collaboration between Caza de Poesia (www.casadepoesia.com)
and Veterans for Peace (www.arlingtonwestsantamonica.org), bringing together the creative voices of the peace movement for a day of protest and inspiration, on World Poetry Day, Sunday, March 21, 2010, at the Arlington West Memorial.


Steve Baratta















Blues For America
(The Morning After, So What Now?)

Do you still have any dreams?
Or any visions that remain? 
Or have they all faded
With the sunset
Or worse
Shattered just like a bottle
That has been broken
On a jaded pavement
Freedom is slavery?
But isn't slavery
The source of human bondage
Which is no freedom at all?
War is peace?
Then tell me this
Who is the benefactor?
The conquered?
Or the conquerer?
The greatest profit for all
World peace
But there is no profit
In peace
And so it will remain
That the wages of war
Is death
Or is it
The wages of sin
Is death
Is there a difference?
But what would you do?
If your troops one day
Just layed down their arms
And packed up and headed for home
Leaving just this message behind
To those concerned:
What is yours has been returned
And someday
What is mine
Will be ours together
Just a dream
Of an idealist dreamer?
But I once knew of a man
Who had a dream
And others like him
Leaders of the own design
Who were silenced
By an assassins bullet
Just like a visionary
With a guitar
Whose message
Changed the world
But he who lived for peace
Died violently
By the gun
Just a dream
Of an idealist dreamer?
But I'm not the only one


To John W/Love
(To John Lennon)

You were more than a name
You were more than a face
You were more than anything
That I could ever hope to achieve
You were more than a name
You were more than a face
You more than a Beatle
Who could put a label
On someone so undefinable
Ever changing
And so undefinable
You came to us
From out of nowhere
Like a shooting star
Rising high above the sky
For all of us to see
But you fell to earth
Too soon
Crashing and burning
Just like a meteor
And felt the impact
On the day
That you were gone
Shock waves from my radio
That penetrated
My body and soul
Shock waves that penetrated
Millions of people
From across the planet
When we learned that you had left us
But you never really left us though
I know that you are looking down on us
And smiling
From somewhere across the universe
Your message was simple and pure
Turn off your mind relax and float downstream
All you need is love And most of all
All we are saying is give peace a chance
But the tragedy
And the irony
Was the tragic end
But just like Kennedy,King
Malcolm and even Jesus
The good they die young
Just another tragic symptom
Of a fucked up world
Still you were a masonary
Who laid the foundation
Of a new vision
For all of us to follow
And an architect    
Who designed the dream
Of a whole generation
I still remember when I was a kid
With a transistor radio
Hidden under my pillow
So that my old man
Couldn't hear the music
That was coming out of its speaker
He never knew
Just what
He was missing                          
I still rember it was your voice
The music The songs
And their message was the revolution
That changed the minds and the lives
Of a generation
But you never really left us though
I know that you are looking down on us
And smiling
From somewhere across the universe




For A Thousand Crosses
(For Arlington West)

A picture is worth
A thousand words
But a thousand deaths
Of a thousand troops

Paints a tragic picture
And each of them
With their own
Stories to tell

A thousand candlles
Held high in the night
In a silent vigil
A thousand crosses

On a thousand graves
And each of them
With their own epitah
And in background

You can hear the sounds
Of a thousand
Fathers and Mothers weeping
A thousand bombs

Shatter an Arabian night
And a thousand deaths
Of a thousand troops
Is a song that I've heard before

And how many more times
Must we hear it again
Untill these very words
Finally penetrate

Father  Father
We don't need to escalate
War is not the answer
Only love can conquer hate

(Words of the last verse
Written by Marvin Gaye
From the song What's Goin' On)



GOD

When the concept of God
Becomes an end all

Or worse
A justifaction

To suit
Someones twisted means

There comes a point
Where sanity ends


And reason
Flies out the window

In a suicidal plunge
To the pavement

With an impact
And its at this point

Where justifactions
In his name

Fly just like bullets
Aimed with precision

To penetrate the helmet
Of an unsuspecting soldier

Wait untill the war is over
And we're both a little older

The unknown soldier
The unknown soldier

Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed

Unborn living
Living dead

Bullet strikes
The helmets head

And its all over
For the unknown soldier

And its all over
For the unknown soldier

And its all over
The war is over

Yeah! Its all over
The war is over

And its all over
The war is over

Say a prayer
For the unknown soldier

Nestled across
Your hollow shoulder

The unknown soldier
The unknown soldier 

(Lyrics written by Jim Morrison
From the song:The Unknown Soldier
THANX JIM!!)

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