REMEMBERING THE GREAT PEACE MARCH

The biggest demonstration on earth (until the global anti-Iraq war march of Feb 15 2003) took place in New York on June 12, 1982, when one million people gathered in support of the second UN Special Session on Disarmament and to protest nuclear weapons.

It has been over a quarter of a century since I went to New York City and "attended" the Great Peace March.
People didn't march; they just walked.
We weren't marching as warriors.
Unless you had called us Warriors for Peace, which is contradictory and oxymoronic.
Nevertheless, almost one million persons walked and then gathered in Central Park.
To hear speeches and songs.
To watch "dignitaries" and VIP's walk past the crowd in front of the main stage.
Since June 12, 1982, the arms race has steadily increased.
Nuclear weapons, although diminished in U.S. and Russian arsenals, have been developed by other governments.
Other nations want what we have so that they can also have offensive/defensive power.
Security?
Below are a few poems that I wrote many years ago, before June 12, 1982.
I wish that they did not contain the content that they have.

Baggy Pockets

The ocean roars like a mad god

Who has slammed a sandy door on man.

The waves rush across my mind

And I look upon the ocean floor:

Diamonds inside buried treasures from chests of ancient lore

A golden ring and a crown of a king

Inside a toy jukebox that makes me sing

A silk handkerchief once inside a pirate's pocket

Now beside a modern rocket

With Jesus' cross all rusted and cracked

Does Santa have a new one packed?

Skeletons of drunk Norsemen with their insane swords

Still shining and ready to use in today's cancerous wars

Sipping mead with a few Greek gods from the Peloponnesian war

And at Gawain's side sits young David, shaking on Goliath's shoulders

Looking at Columbus who has just landed for a second time

To come and take America back to the Indian's fort

But like Robin Hood in a TV commercial

Columbus sells his act for a profit

To keep making crazy rockets and keep filling baggy pockets

With silver, platinum, and gold.

Last Appeal

Atomic madmen

You dancers

Of doom

Leave my Earth

Go live on the Moon

Leave my universe

Atomic madmen

You don't scare me

Boom.

Fin de Siecle

Time and radiation will not erase

My name from thee

Our love came before this cancer called the Atomic Age.

Man's radiation will not diminish us nor his

Geiger counter trace us

We are the great bright stones

Silent and Alive

We shine in the stars

So look at us

Wish upon us

We will answer

Resplendent gods from the original nova fire!

Time and radiation will not erase

My name from thee

Our love will grow and grow

Before and after atomic war.

Nunc

Sunlight's Golden
Metal
Of my dark dreaming:

The Age
Atomic.

The Sun:
Golden Metal
Of dreams,

Horn-blast
My Earthly
Screams,

Wake-up the
World's dreadful
Radioactive fighting.

Oh living nightmare
In Golden
Sunlight,

In the Golden
Metal
Of my Age
Atomic.


IT'S THE OIL STUPID!