Prayer in Time of War
Can you breathe through spreading pain?
Can you bear the suffering again?
Can you bleach the blood-red stain?
Can you stop the rape of Ukraine?
Can you dull the loins of those on heat for war?
Can you block their guns as you’ve done before?
Can the hope of peace-talks cry, ‘No More!’?
Can fiery minds change their very core?
God, so implement the love of Calvary,
Your eirenic Spirit blast the fighters free,
Caress the world with mastery,
Your love that heals painstakingly.
Ships of States
What is poetry?
craft carved from hard words and soft,
coloured for the eye and sounded well,
and polished along the true,
tacked with perfume and fathomed for a spell.
argosy launched from the mire of mind
to sail in auditors’ ears,
and float in currents of readers’ specific
memory, bliss and tears.
tender (legal or outlaw) convoyed from hand to hand
rich koine valued by someone new
or poems pocketed lying idle
lost change hiding in plain view.
****
Ted Witham
Joint Winner WA Poets’ 2018 Occasional Poetry Prize.
Mind Journeys 