This is a selection of poems by Hazel Rennie, who's been part of Aldermaston Women's Peace Camp since 1985. Her poetry has been widely published, and she has also delighted us for many years with her readings of these and other poems around the camp fire.
This selection includes poems about Aldermaston, about war and some nursey rhymes for today. The poems written in the lead up to and aftermath of the 2003 war on Iraq, as yet another public enquiry into that war opens, shows her remarkable prescience and understanding of war.
Sat, 2008-07-26 16:16
Clickety clack
Forward and back
We set our pitch
Sat, 2008-07-26 20:49
Trickling their poison from Aldermaston
To drip feed from Pangbourne ever anon
"Old Father Thames won't notice whatever is fed
And no one else knows or cares" the MOD said.
Sat, 2008-07-26 01:00
See Saw
Marjorie Daw
Aldermaston has a new master,
But BNFL
We know very well
Is heading straight for disaster.
Sat, 2008-07-26 01:00
We are the world's policemen
So y'all have to do as we say.
Y'all want to have world peace? then
Go for it! Just as long as you go our way.
(Here we go round the Mulberry Bush)
Why should we dance round the new current Bush?
Sat, 2008-07-26 01:00
This is not War
This shameful aggresion about to begin,
This is arrogant, callous, raw
Determination to crush - do not say "To win"
Sat, 2008-07-26 01:00
Blair stood up in the House of Commons and frightened them out of their wits
Warning them that Saddam Hussein was about to blow them to bits.
Sat, 2008-07-26 01:00
Fear should not be a child's constant companion
Stringing tender nerves taut with random alarms;
A child should know the world holds compassion enough
Sat, 2008-07-26 01:00
A dust of shame is settling over the world
Day by Day left unheeded
Unattended
To drift in deadening heaps
Blotting out the light of hope;
Its particles falling
Sat, 2008-07-26 01:00
Castle squatter
Schemer plotter
Queeen Bee of the Queenery
Honey smiling,
Money piling
Behing the royal scenery
Such rapacity!
and what audacity
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