Thread: Make Love Not War

Hatred
So intense
Racism
So deep-rooted

How is one supposed to move on?
How is a country supposed to grow?
When living memories still flood everyday life
Of a time when strong opinions dominated

I have always had liberal views
There are so few like me
It is time to spread the wings of society
Accept and love those who are different from ourselves

We all have a voice
We all have the need to accomplish
We all have a desire to be loved
We are all human

Whether the colour of our skin is the polar opposite
Whether our languages have no similarities
Whether we have been raised to pray to a different God
We all want to get through our day and go home to our families at night

It is time
For every nation
To give up the struggle of nonsense
And make love, not war.

"When living memories still flood everyday life
Of a time when strong opinions dominated"

"of" reads strangely to me.

This poem comes of as a little too sentimental to me, the poem reads like an assertion of beliefs because there aren't really any images in the poem.

I didn't really like the third stanza either.

I think you could improve this by reworking the ideas in with some images of their practice. Maybe images of racism and some of the overcoming of it would make this piece hit harder.

Thank you for your critiques SvirVolgate. I really appreciate it.

I could perhaps change the 'of' to 'from'?

There is an "assertion of beliefs" in what I was saying. I believe in liberal thinking. I do believe that if, especially in South Africa, people of the older generations would stop forcing their beliefs on the younger generations there may be a possibility of finding some sort of harmony amongst the races living here.

Now that I am re-reading it, you are right. It is too sentimental. This was my first attempt at writing a poem on a subject that didn't involve personal trauma.

Thank you again.

There is an "assertion of beliefs" in what I was saying. I believe in liberal thinking. I do believe that if, especially in South Africa, people of the older generations would stop forcing their beliefs on the younger generations there may be a possibility of finding some sort of harmony amongst the races living here.

Which makes me wonder, maybe the best thing they can do is force their beliefs on them, then the younger generation will rebel as they always do. I know several of the older generation who left for various reasons, avoiding National service in an armoured vehicle in the townships for example, a little while ago I quoted a line from an SA musical called "Wait a minim" and my friend said "It must be forty years since I heard that, my maths teacher wrote it." He now lives in North London and is married to an Asian lady, they have two grown children, it is all possible and one day it will come to be.