Trigger Warning!
Whenever you turn on your television,
whenever you read a newspaper,
whenever you see images posted online,
whenever you open your eyes
and you brace yourself to see
what is going on around the world,
especially in this day and age,
you would not be mistaken for thinking
that this world was once again at war with itself;
however, in truth, this world
hasn’t known a period of perpetual peace for a long time -
but right now feels as if this world
has never been more fragmented,
and as if the most powerful countries
on Earth have never been
more polarised from one another…
when I see that the President of the United States of America
has signed an executive order declaring that
the “Department of Defense”
now be renamed the “Department of War”,
I start to believe that there has been
a change in direction enacted
by the leader of one of the world’s
most powerful superpowers -
and that is when I start to wonder
whether there will be a future
for the children of this world
in which they will know what it is like to live in peace,
instead of living in fear and never knowing
what it like to be hopeful and optimistic…
I am deeply troubled at the thought
of how many people have died
recently around the world
because they have been caught in the crossfire
of a conflict that they never wanted to be involved in,
I mourn for those innocent souls who have lost their lives
through no fault of their own,
and my heart goes out to all those people
who have lost loved ones as well as their
homes and their livelihoods
because they were overwhelmed
by the force of the storm of death and destruction
that war always rains down upon
everyone who find themselves in a war zone
that was once a place where many considered their home…
this world has been here before,
this world has been on the brink
of self-destruction because of humanity many times -
because we have allowed the unstoppable
war machine to continue to do what it does best:
build better weapons and come up with more efficient ways
to annihilate as many people as possible -
which, in my opinion, is the antithesis of the best of humanity…
every time I see what humanity is doing to itself,
every time I see the destruction and the decimation
that has been inflicted upon the homes of the victims,
and whenever I see the faces of the survivors
of the attacks and the atrocities that have been committed
by the opposing factions of a war,
I struggle to understand and to imagine
how and when this world will ever come to its senses
and end the suffering of the world once and for all;
however, I cannot help myself
from continuing to hope that one day
the long shadow that the world now lives underneath
will disappear and humanity will become
less obsessed with building and using
weapons of mass destruction
and bring about a present when we will never again
have to live in a state such as the one
it feels as if we are living in right now:
an era that undoubtedly feels
like a time of war.
war
The Storyteller: War of Words
“War of Words” is a poem taken from Mark’s 2025 poetry collection ‘The Storyteller‘ – now available to purchase in hardback and as an ebook from Amazon.
My Poem “War of Words”
Even some of the longest
and the most devastating conflicts
that the people of our planet have known
have started with something seemingly
so small, so simple, and so subtle as a single word,
or a whisper in the ear of someone
whose voice and influence carries farther than others…
even some of the most seemingly innocent
and quiet people on Earth
are capable of inflicting a great deal of harm
and can create a great deal of damage –
because though they appear to be someone
who would not say anything to anybody,
behind closed doors some people
are not who and what they seem
and they take any opportunity to
talk about others and attempt to
ruin how people they don’t like are perceived…
even the closest of friends
can find themselves falling out with one another
because they believe that their relationship
has changed to such a drastic degree
that there is no going back to how things were
when things were good…
even some days that begin without
anything to grumble about
can slowly descend into a “day from hell” –
when everything seems to go wrong,
when no one can find mutual understanding,
nor common ground,
and when every interaction feels like a fight
that will only escalate and get out of hand
the more that time goes on…
even something that was originally intended
to be a joke can be twisted and turned
into something that is a far cry
from what it was supposed to be –
and as a result feelings can be expressed,
things can be said, choices can be made,
and what will happen next may not
be what was expected, nor wanted,
because it doesn’t take long for
“nothing” to become “something”,
nor does it take long for something that is said
to be taken out of context,
and it doesn’t take long before
there are the first of many exchanges shared
within a war of words.
Taken from my poetry collection ‘The Storyteller’ – out now: https://amzn.eu/d/fJUJ6Ss
My Poem “A hundred years”
It has been a hundred years
since the First World War ended –
“the war to end all wars” –
and yet humanity still wages war
against itself every day…
it has been a hundred years
since brave men put their lives
on the line to bring peace
to the entire world –
and yet, every day, soldiers
still march, fight, and oppose
the might of an adversarial army and ideology
whose subscribed members
cannot always be plainly identified…
it has been a hundred years,
it has been a life-time,
it has been a century since families
put their hands together to pray
that we may never again see the day
when humanity would take up arms against itself –
and yet people still do harm to others every day,
and peace between everybody cannot be maintained…
it has been a hundred years
since the soldiers and the survivors of World War I
put down their weapons and began
the long walk of grief,
hoping to remember the fallen
and to never allow history to repeat itself;
however, 11 years after the end
of “the war to end all wars”,
another war sparked into life
and millions of people died –
and when it ended, six long years later,
the world was assured that the peace
that was won at a heavy cost would always endure…
it has been a hundred years
since an understanding was reached by many nations
to work together instead of fighting each other –
and yet, a hundred years since
war should have become a thing of the past,
our world is still in a constant struggle with itself
and not everybody wants to get along with one-another;
however, no matter the constant conflict
that still exists around the world,
I still remain hopeful that humanity
will one day find universal peace and serenity –
but hopefully it won’t need to take another hundred years
for the entire world to come to its senses
and learn to get along with each other
for the sake of our children’s future.
My poem ‘World War-free’
Why can’t we be a world war-free?
Why can’t we all just all understand one-another,
live in peace, and be a united beacon of hope
and camaraderie for the rest of the galaxy?
Why can’t all the leaders of every country on Earth
see that constant conflict should not be
what puts the “human” in “humanity”?
Why can’t we all, please, for once in our long history,
just collectively put aside our differences
and want the reality of our children’s future
to be a world that is war-free?
The heart and the soul of humanity
is an endless well within which you can find
the truth to every mystery and the answer
to every question that anybody has ever searched for…
we are one race, of two sexes,
made up of a multitude of colours
and shades of personality and culture…
within the very DNA code of our biology
you can find the family-line
and the infinite branches of the family-tree
of which we are connected to
and have been since our Earth’s first dawn…
we can only fulfill our God-given destiny
and our birthright if we all first choose
to not look back on the problems of the past
and learn to stop reinforcing
the grudges of our ancestors,
and focus on building a bright and beautiful future.
I want now to be when I see a new hope for us all rise,
instead of the sight of missiles and rockets
flying through the air
and ultimately causing destruction and carnage in their wake…
I want now to be when somebody up there from heaven,
or outer-space, comes down to Earth and makes us all realize
what the fate of the entire world will be
if we arrive at the time when we need world-wide unity
and collaboration, but we are too late…
I want now to be when we are lead forwards, not backwards –
when we fulfill the hope of the one who had a dream,
and the one who died because he believed in that dream…
I want now to be when all problems
can be solved by words, not weapons…
I want now to be the first day of a new beginning for humanity
when we finally come to the world-wide realisation
that our only hope of survival can only become a reality
if we can learn to work together to make a world
for all to live in and enjoy that is war-free.
Mark The Poet 