The Wall

Today I am one of thousands of poets around the world who are taking part in 100-Thousand Poets for Change day. The poems I am reading are below.

I’ll be reading them in Cardigan, west Wales, between 4pm and 5pm in an event organised by our local live literature group, the Cellar Bards. We’ll be reading short poems on the theme of ‘change’ and ‘peace’.

The town’s community bookshop, Leafed Through, is also taking part.  Everyone who reads poems will write them on postcards, which are being laminated to hang on lines in the bookshop.

This is one of many events being staged simultaneously around the world as a demonstration/celebration of poetry, art and music to promote social, environmental, and political change.

We hear so much bad news and this is a chance for people to be involved in something positive, and to link with others in getting the message out there that people do care about local and world issues.

Many poets around the world, several living in war-torn countries, are taking part in the event and they need to know that people are listening to the fact that daily life and poetry must go on.

Hundreds of cities representing over 100 countries signed up to the 100 TPC global initiative.

Visit www.100TPC.org for more details about 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

I chose one symbol to focus on for my poems for the day. When I was younger we had the Berlin Wall, which symbolised the Cold War. Now we have the great wall that cuts through the Palestinian lands and for me symbolises the tragedy of the Middle East and the terrible divisions of today’s world.

At 25 feet it’s twice as high as the Berlin Wall and it is 800 km long. It’s made of concrete and razor wire and it’s not straight, oh no, it weaves around to do the most possible damage. Sometimes it encircles villages, sometimes cuts right through them.

The Wall …

makes borders 25 feet high,
it separates, isolates,
divides families, splits communities,
wrecks water supplies,
surrounds villages to make prisons;
it’s a blueprint for division
it constructs apartheid -
and it kills the view from both sides.
 

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and two haiku on similar theme… 
 

Children cry out for
the power of peace as
conflict tears the world

 

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flags over mountains,
bright colours for refugees
flying over plains