Ronovan Writes Sijo Wednesday Poetry Challenge #24. Use ADVERSITY as your inspiration this week.

The painting below is by Franz Marc, killed at Verdun in 1916. It put me in mind of the Ukrain, a country standing tall in adversity.

ADVERSITY

This is part of Ronovanwrite’s Weekly Sijo Challenge

Bullies cower, smaller nations by oppression.
Raging in, all barrels blasting, no mercy, proving evil garners evil.
Yet the oppressed stood strong and for freedom. Strength in adversity.

Ronovanwrites Sijo.

Song Lyric Sunday. April 10, 2022 – Army, Soldier, War .

Jim Adams

Its Sunday and time Jim Adams Song Lyric Sunday the theme is Army, Soldier, War and was picked by Di at pensitivity101. Great choice Di.

My first choice was Army Dreamers written and performed by Kate Bush. In 1980 I was mum to two boys number three was not born yet. I was busy looking after the boys, I was working as a cleaner as it fit in well with the boys . Kate Bush was my hero of the day.

.

“Army Dreamers” is a 1980 song, the third and final single to be released from the album Never for Ever, by Kate Bush. It was a UK top 20 hit in October 1980.

“Army Dreamers” was released on 22 September 1980 and peaked at number 16 in the UK Singles Chart. The song is about the effects of war and about a mother who grieves for her young adult son, who was killed on military manoeuvres. Saddened by his unnecessary death, she wrestles with her guilt over what she could have done to prevent it. The song is a waltz, which marks a change to Bush’s previous singles. The version on the original single release is longer than on the album release. This version fades; whereas the single release has a dead ending (the version of the single from The Single File, however, fades like the album release).

The single includes two B-sides, “Delius” and “Passing Through Air”. “Delius” is Bush’s tribute to English composer Frederick Delius. The subtitle, “Song of Summer“, comes from one of Delius’s works, and from a BBC film Bush saw about the composer’s life. Again, it’s of note that the album version is different in that the previous track “Babooshka” segues into it, whereas the single B-side version begins unobscured. “Passing Through Air” is one of Bush’s earliest works—originally recorded in 1973 at David Gilmour’s studio, a few weeks after her 15th birthday.

The reference in the lyrics to “BFPO” refers to “British Forces Post Office“, the postal system for the British armed forces, who deliver the message: “Our little army boy is coming home, from BFPO.”.

“Army Dreamers” was one of 68 songs considered inappropriate for airplay by the BBC during the first Gulf War.

The music video opens on a closeup of Kate Bush, dressed in dark green camouflage, holding a child. She blinks in synchronisation with the song’s sampled gun cocks. The camera pulls out and shows that Bush has a white-haired child on her lap. The child walks off and returns in military combat uniform, and during the first pre-chorus, as Bush responds to her bandmates’ comments, the child grows up into a 20-year-old. Bush and several soldiers (two of whom, Bush included, have “KT8” or “KTB” stencilled on the butt of their rifles: “KTB” was a monogram used by Bush early in her career) make their way through woodland, amid explosions. As the song progresses, Bush reaches out for the child soldier, but he disappears. Finally, Bush is blown up.

Bush has stated that this video is one of the few examples of her work that completely satisfies her:

For me that’s the closest that I’ve got to a little bit of film. And it was very pleasing for me to watch the ideas I’d thought of actually working beautifully. Watching it on the screen. It really was a treat, that one. I think that’s the first time ever with anything I’ve done I can actually sit back and say “I liked that”. That’s the only thing. Everything else I can sit there going “Oh look at that, that’s out of place”. So I’m very pleased with that one, artistically. Kate Bush. Info. Wiki

B.F.P.O.
Army dreamers
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.
Mammy’s hero

Our little army boy
Is coming home from B.F.P.O.
I’ve a bunch of purple flowers
To decorate mammy’s hero
Mourning in the aerodrome
The weather warmer, he is colder
Four men in uniform
To carry home my little soldier

But he didn’t have the money for a guitar
(What could he do?)
(Should have been a politician)
But he never had a proper education
(What could he do?)
(Should have been a father)
But he never even made it to his twenties
What a waste
Army dreamers
Oh, what a waste of
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers)

Tears o’er a tin box
Oh, Jesus Christ, he wasn’t to know
Like a chicken with a fox
He couldn’t win the war with ego
Give the kid the pick of pips
And give him all your stripes and ribbons
Now he’s sitting in his hole
He might as well have buttons and bows

But he didn’t have the money for a guitar
(What could he do?)
(Should have been a politician)
But he never had a proper education
(What could he do?)
(Should have been a father)
But he never even made it to his twenties
What a waste
Army dreamers
Ooh, what a waste of
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers)
Ooh, what a waste of all them
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers)
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers)
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers), oh

B.F.P.O.
Army dreamers
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.
Army dreamers
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.
No hard heroes
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.
Army dreamers
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Kate Bush

Army Dreamers lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.

*****

My brother was a Major in the army, he was also an RSM. Regimental Sargent Major. He retired as an RSM and was invited back into the army with a commission as a Major.

He was very upset kitting out ‘his boys’ for Afghanistan and Iraq with substandard gear, clothing and equipment not fit for purpose. He advised them to get as much gear as the could from the American troops out there.

“Everybody’s Gone to War” is a song written and performed by London-born, Jersey-raised singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot. The song, an anti-war protest, was written during the early stages of the Iraq War in 2003 and was composed on bass guitar by Pallot.

^{Originally distributed as a promotional CD in 2004, the song was commercially issued as the third single from Pallot’s second album, Fires, on 22 May 2006, reaching number 14 on the UK Singles Chart the same month. The accompanying music video features Pallot and other shoppers engaging in a ‘food fight’ in a busy supermarket. Directed by Marc Klasfeld, it received heavy rotation on British music channels with many people praising the humorous setting despite depicting a darker message within..} info Wiki

********

I’ve got a friend
He’s a pure bred killing machine.

He said he’s waited his whole damn life for this

I knew him well when he was 17, now he’s a man who’ll be dead by Christmas
And

So, everybody’s gone to war
But we don’t know what we’re fighting for,

Don’t tell me it’s a worthy
Cause no cause could be so worthy

If love is a drug I guess we’re all sober,
If hope is a song I guess it’s all over,
How to have faith when faith is a crime,
I don’t want to die

If God’s on our side then God is a joker,
Asleep on the job his children fall over,
Running out through the door and straight to the sky,
I don’t want to die.

For every man who wants to rule the world,
There’ll be a man who just wants to be free,
What do we learn but what should not be learned,
Too late to find the cure for this disease

So, everybody’s gone to war
But we don’t know what we’re fighting for,

If love is a drug I guess we’re all sober,
If hope is a song I guess it’s all over,
How to have faith when faith is a crime,
I don’t want to die

I, I-I, I

I, I-I, I
Don’t want to die

I-I don’t want to die

So, everybody’s gone to war
But we don’t know what we’re fighting for,

If love is a drug I guess we’re all sober,
If hope is a song I guess it’s all over,
How to have faith when faith is a crime,
I don’t want to die

I, I-I, I
I, I-I, I
Don’t want to die

I-I don’t want to die

I’ve got a friend, he’s a pure bred killing machine,
I think he might be dead by
Christmas.

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Nerina Pallot

Everybody’s Gone to War lyrics © BMG Rights Management.

*****

Emma Nadine Stevens (born 4 May 1986) is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, based in Guildford, Surrey, England. She achieved mainstream success with her single “Riptide” from her first album Enchanted, which was featured as iTunes Single of the Week in October 2013 and had over 150,000 downloads. She describes her music as “sparkly folk pop”. Info Wiki

“Keep the Home-Fires Burning (Till the Boys Come Home)” is a British patriotic First World War song composed in 1914 by Ivor Novello with words by Lena Guilbert Ford (whose middle name was sometimes printed as “Gilbert”).

The song was published first as “‘Till the Boys Come Home” on 8 October 1914 by Ascherberg, Hopwood and Crew Ltd. in London. A new edition was printed in 1915 with the name “Keep the Home-Fires Burning”. The song became very popular in the United Kingdom during the war, along with “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary“.^{[citation needed]}

James F. Harrison recorded “Keep the Home-Fires Burning” in 1915, as did Stanley Kirkby in 1916. Another popular recording was sung by tenor John McCormack in 1917, who was also the first to record “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” in 1914. (See External links below to hear these recordings of “Keep the Home-Fires Burning”.) Other versions include one by Frederick J. Wheeler and one by the duet Reed Miller & Frederick Wheeler.

There is a misconception that Ivor Novello’s mother wrote the lyrics for the song (propagated—for example—by patter in recorded performances of British musical comedy duo Hinge and Bracket) but Lena Ford (an American) was a friend and collaborator of Novello, not a blood relation.

The opening of the melody bears a resemblance to Gustav Holst’s setting of the Christmas Carol “In the Bleak Midwinter“. Info Wiki.

******

They were summoned from the hillside
They were called in from the glen,
And the country found them ready
At the stirring call for men.
Let no tears add to their hardships
As the soldiers pass along,
And although your heart is breaking
Make it sing this cheery song

Keep the Home Fires Burning,
While your hearts are yearning,
Though your lads are far away
They dream of home.
There’s a silver lining
Through the dark clouds shining,
Turn the dark cloud inside out
‘Til the boys come home.

Overseas there came a pleading,
“Help a nation in distress.”
And we gave our glorious laddies
Honour bade us do no less,
For no gallant son of freedom
To a tyrant’s yoke should bend,
And a noble heart must answer
To the sacred call of “Friend.”

Keep the Home Fires Burning,
While your hearts are yearning,
Though your lads are far away
They dream of home.
There’s a silver lining
Through the dark clouds shining,
Turn the dark cloud inside out
‘Til the boys come home.

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Ivor Novello / Lena Guilbert Ford

Keep the Home Fires Burning lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc..

Finally a tribute to the Ukraine’s valiant soldiers and people who are at War.

HAPPY Sunday Everyone 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS March 19, 2022

Badge by Shelley Krupa..

It’s Saturday and time for LindaGHill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. This week Linda has said “Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “comp.” Find a word that starts with or contains “comp” and use it in your post. Enjoy!”

© willowdot21

Compassion?

Comfort us in our hour of need
Open your eyes and ears, take heed
Mindfulness is needed in the world
Pain and grief like weapons hurled.
All the woes of this vale of tears
Sirens and bullets raise their fears
Sweet Jesus give them hope
In you we trust , help them cope.
Oh! the Horsemen love our pain.
Now they’re here they’ll not leave again. .

Listen to the truth and shame the devil.

This may be long but it is truly worth listening to.

I love the Russian people. That is why I have to tell you the truth. Please watch and share. pic.twitter.com/6gyVRhgpFV

— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) March 17, 2022

The video is about Syria but looking at it is about Ukraine too! It is about every war!

I am crying for the world !

#TANKATUESDAY WEEKLY POETRY CHALLENGE. EXPHRASTIC#photoprompt.

Selma and Colleen selected the painting for this week’s Ekphrastic#photoprompt. It’s a Degas and you can read more about it HERE.

Remember, we can see what’s in the image, so write your poem using the image as an inspiration. Don’t just describe what you see in the image. Think about metaphor and allegory. Just remember to check which form you’re using. Some of the Japanese forms frown upon the use of metaphors. This challenge explores Ekphrastic writing, inspired by visual art.

I chose to write an Abhanga. The Abhanga is written in any number of 4-line stanzas with 6-6-6-4 syllables each. L2 and L3 rhyme. The end rhyme scheme is abbc. It is customary to title your poetry. It is not the ordinary Russian people’s fault that they are lied to by their government and media. This is what I have tried to express in my poem .

Our piece of Art is.

Title: Russian Dancers
Artist: Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834–1917 Paris)
Date: 1899 via https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/

DON’T TRUST PUTIN

Whirl and stamp, heel, toe high
Stamp those boots, drown out lies.
Hear truth before it dies
Don’t trust Putin.

Mother Russia blushes
Her Boots are made to stamp
Ukraine caught in her clamp
Don’t trust Putin.

Don’t listen to the news
Open your eyes, look
The man’s an evil crook
Don’t trust Putin.

PART OF COLLEEN’S TANKA TUESDAY.

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS March 12, 2022

Badge by Shelley Krupa..

LindaGHill is hear again to give us this week’s prompt. : “Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “trip.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!”

Trip can mean a holiday or a journey, it can mean falling flat on your bum or your face! You can trip people up in a lie as in catch them out. Below is a Décima I wrote last year for Ronovanwrite’s Weekly Décima Challenge. I originally wrote it about Libia. Today what I wrote about Libia is still true . I stream of consciousnessly changed the verses to fit Ukraine to fit all wars also. So this poem started out about Libia it took a trip and became a poem about Ukraine.

Décima .Trip in the B line . The original poem is here

A décima for Ukraine

Line of blood drawn in snow or sand.
Poison and fear begin to drip
Over the evil rules you trip
The men stand with guns in hand
Take the children to safer land
Every inch you have ever gained
Corridors to freedom are drained.
Deserted, left now high and dry
False promises, innocents die
Lost forever the freedom gained.

This is part of LindaGHill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday

Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge Prompt No. 100 (ROAR) in the D rhyme line.

Ukrainian emergency employees and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from the damaged by shelling maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine.

The innocent.

The season is a changing fast
The bulbs are pushing up through snow
Their roots are spreading down below
Above there’s war, bombs fall and tanks blast
Nature hears the echos of the past.
She wonders will man ever learn
As innocents they crush and burn.
The Russians lie and will ignore
It is false news the liars roar.
Against evil we must stand firm.

THIS IS PART OF RONOVANWRITE’S WEEKLY DÉCIMA CHALLENGE.

#TankaTuesday #Poetry Challenge No. 264, 3/8/22 #Create Your Own Syllabic Form.

Welcome to Colleen’s Tuesday Tanka. This week Colleen said : “Create Your Own Syllabic Poetry Form & Teach Us How to Write the Form”

I thought about this and finally settled on a poem of two stanzas . Each stanza is of seven lines, each line is made up of seven syllables. The lines in the stanza do not rhyme but the lines in the first stanza do rhyme with corresponding line in the second stanza eg. First line stanza one rhymes with line one stanza two, second line stanza one rhymes with second line stanza two and so on . I have called my poem a Septex. This poem is about all the refugees all over the world past and present.

image from Pixabay

Refugees .

Gently falls the silent snow
Covering all the traces
Of the plight of the faceless
Hidden, easy to forget.
The refugee’s plight is plain
Unseen crushed under the boot
Of those who started this strife

Ceaseless they’ve no where to go.
Fear written on their faces
Children to their sides are pressed
Some bring their beloveded pets.
They look for rest, all in vein.
The bombs fall and soldiers loot
The remains of their once life.

The Eastern Winds.

This poem is in support of all those in the Ukraine and was inspired by Jane Dougherty’s poem, On Days of Wind . Please read Jane’s poem. I have borrowed the painting Jane used which is a painting by Franz Marc, killed at Verdun in 1916.

The washing hangs abandoned
In the Ukraine, blooded and singed
Cowering not from the wind but from the bombs .
It is tethered to a line, an invisible line
Everyone has forgotten and it stays Abandoned in the cold wind and snow.

It’s a symbol of the people
Made refugee
Hanging between life and death
Bombarded by those with no conscience
Empty promises of safe passage
Hanging on the invisible line
We must not dessert them.

© willowdot21

🇺🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦🇬🇧🇺🇦🇬🇧

Ronovan Writes Décima Poetry Challenge Prompt No. 99 (HOOK) in the C rhyme line.

Ukraine held fast in Russia’s grip
Kyiv, Kharkiv are now household names
While evil Putin plays his games
Ukrainians brave, will not quit
They soldier on while missiles hit.
Russian people are on the hook
The news is all from Putin’s book.
They’re lied to and kept in the dark
While jackboot stamps and war dogs bark.
The world must act, the world must look.

PART OF RONOVANWRITE’S WEEKLY DÉCIMA CHALLENGE