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by Bob Newman
"If this is peace, what's war?"
Omagh woman interviewed by TV reporter
If this is peace then what, I ask, is war?
What difference does it make to folk like me?
We've heard it all, and suffered it, before.
Is this the way it always has to be?
How many years before this island's free
Of violence and death, of blood and gore?
What do we have to do to make them see?
If this is peace then what, I ask, is war?
The priests and politicians all deplore
The bombing, and appeal for unity.
I want to know, what's that Agreement for?
What difference does it make to folk like me?
Much good it's done us that they all "agree"!
Some haven't stopped the killing they foreswore,
Death haunts our streets, and truth's a refugee.
We've heard it all, and suffered it, before.
Does Irish air bring out some fatal flaw,
A latent fault in all humanity?
Must troubles mar our lives for evermore?
Is this the way it always has to be?
What's done is done, and no-one can restore
This bomb-scarred town to what it used to be.
So is jaw-jaw much better than war-war?
There's not much in it, far as I can see,
If this is peace.
Copyright by Bob Newman. This poem won the Ireland Competition in Manifold, 2001. Mr. Newman maintains sites for HQ Poetry Magazine and A Guide to Verse Forms. See his home page.
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