By Roger Chao
The Silent Truth
In the tumult of a raging battle, beneath the echoing cries,
Where shadows merge with fading lights, the silent truth belies.
A world not split by borders, nor by rifles drawn in dread,
But bound by shared existence, in the spaces tear-stained red.
We gather here as fragments of a once harmonious whole,
Diverse in thought and creed, yet one in heart, in soul.
For pain, it knows no language, nor sorrow a flag does claim;
In every mother’s weeping eyes, the tears fall just the same.
The earth beneath our feet, soaked with the ages’ cries,
Does not discern the victor, nor the truth amongst the lies.
It absorbs each drop of blood as if to cleanse our skin,
Hoping perhaps that from this soil, peace might grow within.
Can you hear the echoes of the fallen, whispering in the breeze?
Their voices carry stories across the oceans, through the trees.
They speak of dreams unfulfilled, of lives too swiftly taken,
They sing a sombre lullaby of the lost and the forsaken.
For what is war but a mirror reflecting our darkest fears,
A testament to what is lost through forgetting our common tears.
A child’s laughter silenced before it can fully form,
A lover’s bed left cold and empty, never to be warm.
Imagine now a world untouched by the scourge of war’s design,
Where the morning dew whispers of peace, and all our hopes align.
Where children’s laughter fills the air, free from the shadow of fear,
And the old are left to ponder life, with no more need for tears.
Let us then lay down the arms that serve only to divide,
And walk the path of understanding, with our hearts open wide.
For we are one beneath the stars, in the sun’s eternal light,
Divided not by our differences, but bound by our shared plight.
So remember this silent truth, not anger, hate or blame,
That the dreams and hopes and fears we share, are proof we are the same.
And never again shall division, see the light of day,
For in unity, we find strength, and in humanity, our way.
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Roger Chao is a writer based in the beautiful Dandenong Ranges, where the forest and local community inspire his writings. Passionate about social justice, Roger strives to use his writing to engage audiences to think critically about the role they can play in making a difference.
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Simply brilliant, Roger.
Thank you Roger.
All strength to those who
speak elemental truths and
wish for better times …
John Lennon wrote the song Imagine in 1971, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five was written in 1969, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 appeared in 1961, Hannah Arendt’s works The Human Condition were published in 1958, and The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, British ‘trench poets’ such as Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen were actively writing of the horrors of warfare in the early twentieth century following their experiences during WWI, to name but a mere few influential artists, writers, intellectuals from within the western hemisphere who actively endeavoured to warn mankind of the pathology of warmongering.
I’m confident that there would be hundreds if not thousands of similar examples from across the globe, all brave and honest men and women who warn us, intelligently and sanely, of the craziness of warfare, of the never-ending suffering that accrues, of the senseless slaughter of man and animal, of the poisoning of lands and the utterly mad quest to destroy mankind’s better efforts towards civilisation in the sense of built structures; cities, farmlands, along with the testaments to higher powers in church & cathedral & temple and statuary; all of this for nought when the lunatics hold the reins of power and allow hatred of foes and unbridled ambition to obsessively invade their psychological spaces and unlock their cages to let the devils run free.
Wiser men than me have from time to time lamented that the human being is a fatally flawed creature, one that is seriously deficient in some vital and elemental psychological capacities & insights, and thus condemned to repeat, as history demonstrates, these periodic irruptions of malevolent and disastrously damaging behaviour… the slaughter of their fellow kind.
I salute the voices that cry out for change and sensibility and peace for all mankind, but history teaches us that we sadly cry in vain.
Lest we forget. The world is ours to make as we want it ….. but nothing happens until I make the first move.
You know, for every dreamer, there is an opposite that sits in fire and pain.
Humanity sits on the edge of destruction
And we really have no answer but hope.
There is no laying down of arms for the innocent when the fire is unleashed on us all
But be carefull what you wish for
You cannot wish away part of our humanity
As tragic as it is, thats who we are
Accepting the truth is part of the solution
And so it goes on, the death cult in the name of fear, of difference, of blame, and of vengeance.
An intemperance that abdicates to invented angels and gods
With indigestible writs of mangled reason
We judge ourselves through endless sophistication
And contemplate nature’s obliteration
Spiralling like galaxies bound for darkness