Never again ?
Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 3:45 pm
I hear on the news that another one of our soldiers has been killed in Afghanistan.
So I put this one on.
It's more informal in arrangement. It has a lot of place names and to get a more formal rhyme and metre I thought that I would have had to put in too many words which were just fillers that had no other purpose than to make the rhyme and metre.
Although it is an informal structure, it is not unstructured. I have tried to include poetic elements such as assonance, alliteration, some metric rhythm in parts and repeats to stand for the echo of rhyme.
NEVER AGAIN
It was "the war to end all wars",
thousands fell at the Somme.
And the League of Nations was born,
" Never again " they said.
The brutal slaughter of Armenians,
Nanking was put to the sword.
Men died like dogs on the Burma Railway,
and the bombs rained down on Dresden.
At Auschwitz, the ashes of millions.
And the United Nations was born,
"Never again " they said.
For Russia; the gulags. For China; Red Guards.
Korea and Tibet saw brute force.
Lebanon torn apart by hate
and the Vietnam war dragged on.
Still the United Nations met,
"Never again " they said.
On 9/11 the towers came down,
now death on the streets of Iraq.
Uncounted slain in the Congo each day.
The suffering of Afghanistan.
Bombers can strike anywhere in the world,
the rockets fly in Gaza.
The United Nations solemnly meets,
" Never again " they say.
So I put this one on.
It's more informal in arrangement. It has a lot of place names and to get a more formal rhyme and metre I thought that I would have had to put in too many words which were just fillers that had no other purpose than to make the rhyme and metre.
Although it is an informal structure, it is not unstructured. I have tried to include poetic elements such as assonance, alliteration, some metric rhythm in parts and repeats to stand for the echo of rhyme.
NEVER AGAIN
It was "the war to end all wars",
thousands fell at the Somme.
And the League of Nations was born,
" Never again " they said.
The brutal slaughter of Armenians,
Nanking was put to the sword.
Men died like dogs on the Burma Railway,
and the bombs rained down on Dresden.
At Auschwitz, the ashes of millions.
And the United Nations was born,
"Never again " they said.
For Russia; the gulags. For China; Red Guards.
Korea and Tibet saw brute force.
Lebanon torn apart by hate
and the Vietnam war dragged on.
Still the United Nations met,
"Never again " they said.
On 9/11 the towers came down,
now death on the streets of Iraq.
Uncounted slain in the Congo each day.
The suffering of Afghanistan.
Bombers can strike anywhere in the world,
the rockets fly in Gaza.
The United Nations solemnly meets,
" Never again " they say.