Survivors in a Ruined City

We hide while bombs destroy our homes,
mothers and children hunkered
in the dust of a city reduced to its bare bones.

Men came, destroyed and, conscienceless,
fled the scenes of devastation; they are
gone while we survivors are hopeless,

watching the afterbirth of jet contrails
still fading in the silent sky.
It will take years to clear the city

of bodies, bricks and rubble. Why
do men fight and kill, destroy futures
while our plaintive cries rise,  

quavering into infinity? War does no right,
only wrong, crumbling hearts and souls,
leaving them ragged and cold.

Kim M. Russell, 24th October 2023

This Tuesday, dVerse Poets Pub Poetics is hosted by Punam who asks, ‘Why war?’ and asks us to think about the inhuman side of war.  She says, ‘Strip a war of jingoism and romanticism and all that would be left is the miasmic putridity of death and depravity’.

For today’s Poetics, Punam would like us to write anti-war poems: a soldier’s dilemma about killing strangers and his despair at taking lives; the point of view of his mother/father/wife or kid; or we can write from an ordinary citizen’s perspective. I revisited a poem I wrote for NaPoWriMo in April and rewrote it.

31 thoughts on “Survivors in a Ruined City”

  2. War is a nightmare and civilians bear the brunt of it for no fault of theirs.
    “while our plaintive cries rise,
    quavering into infinity” creates such a haunting image.
    Thanks for joining in, Kim, with this plaintive cry.

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  12. War is our go-to for settling differences. Like boys in the playground. They seem incapable of working out another way. As long as little boys run the world, with their aggressive little boy mindsets, we won’t ever find another.

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  14. “watching the afterbirth of jet contrails
    still fading in the silent sky.
    It will take years to clear the city”

    This is the stanza that stood out to me. The physical afterbirth of war leaves the living to carry on in a devastated landscape while dealing with their souls in tatters. It is unimaginable.

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