God's on a slide rule back down in the old school and teaching defensive tactics to back street medics,
Logarithms dance classes with bow tied girls wearing opera glasses and Father is stood by the door,
there's a movement in here in the final year and the war outside has begun,
'run baby run' on the transistor radio and the party of the first part gets tangled in the barbed wire of comments in the free press which presses out the conscripts.

Strip away the lies and see what lies inside, see what others try to hide.
Confide if you must in the wise and the just before you die.

The war's out there in chapter one and God has gone to Sainsbury's to bury all his feelings in food aisle twenty three, nothing's free, not for you, not for me and
not for God on food aisle
number twenty three.

The Ninth Battalion (Australia)

By Sun-filled day and frosty night,
O’er rugged hills and desert sand,
We learned to work as teams, to fight
In jungles of another land.

From every city, State and town,
All the lovely countryside,
Impelled by grim war’s cold, bleak frown,
Gathered we at fair Woodside.

And some of us were volunteers,
But mostly we young conscripts were,
With youthful hopes, ambitions, fears;
Young men’s dreams of love were there.

And lusts, for we weren’t choir boys,
Nor simpering wowser, nor old maid.
We searched for brawling, drinking joys
And chased the girls of Adelaide.

Oh Adelaide, what wondrous pubs,
The Rundle, Gresham (Mind you Roy?),
The Western, Finden, all were hubs
Of social, sinful, youthful joy.

But scarce the city trips sublime.
Beneath the awesome stars our home.
And Sun-bronzed we became with time,
Leigh Creek, Cultana, ours to roam.

At Murray Bridge we fired our weapons, honed our drills;
Formed Section and Platoon at Humbug Scrub, and that was fun.
We dug-dug-dug to prove to them that be our skills,
And by night stood freezing piquet on the gun.

Canungra’s forest, where chilled to bone
We learned to ambush and by sudden flare to ****.
The Flinders Range, those hills of stone.
Shoalwater Bay did prove our skill.

And at the last and having passed our nation’s test,
(for some a final accolade)
And to that question answered yes,
We made farewell to Adelaide.

At Murray Bridge we fired our weapons, honed our drills;
Formed Section and Platoon at Humbug Scrub, and that was fun.
We dug-dug-dug to prove to them that be our skills,
And by night stood freezing piquet on the gun.

Due laden leaves.
Fog spun in webs
Draped loose on
Fading trees.

A Forrest on it's knees
Bleeds honest tears of autumn,
Pleads solace from the slaughter,
Screaming "Is this all that we can be?"
The wisps of white washed memories
Haunt the glade for those that see.
Conscripts of the ancient mist,
Souls called forth then cast to sea.

CONSCRIPTS: CHILDREN OF WAR

Conscripts, Innocent children robbed for war
From Congo, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Mali….
From Uganda to Sudan and South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Senegal…..
They are the forefronts young fatal fighters
From Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, Lord Resistance Army…..
They are these merciless Militias mouths-youths
From Biafra-Nigeria, Bujumbura, Asmara to Abidjan Civil Wars
They are their battalions’ fertile feeding grounds
They are Kony, Riek Machar and Ruthless Rebels’ mercenaries
They are Ouattara, Nkurunziza, Salva Kiir…..youthful foot soldiers  
They are Resistance Armies and Liberation army’s guerillas  

They raided a village
They foraged the villages
For innocent, forced conscripts
At dawn-at dusk, daytime-nighttime  
At noontime-at eventide-every time

And she begged
These satans that came
At the mask of dark nights
Slithering silent as serpents
For her last left and living!

She mourned and bemoaned
Helpless and hopeless
Her, grief-stricken hapless
But under those ****** shot eyes
Those coals-hot red coloured irises
That pity or its empathy knows not
It was all in vain-to no avail!

Determined, resolute, uncaring, ruthlessly  
Him tucked on her compassionate chest
Him still tagged on her hopeless breast
Its cheeks struggling to suckle any fluid
From these sagged sacks of balloons
Him they riotously robbed

And those that can’t they ripped
To those that can’t they opened
Those that can’t they roped
To those that can’t odd happened
Those that can’t they *****
To those that can’t they dampened

Those able fingerings wrapped
On frontiers as fighters they lined
With no war experience
With no ammunitions intelligence
No boots-barefoot, no shirts-bare chests
As shields shivering, roughly ripped
By advanced military and militias

Never to know home again
Never to know its warmth again
Never to know fears again
Never to know pains again
Never to know happiness ever again
Never to know the sweet tastes again
Of what Mama’s milk-nourishing colostrums contain

Somewhere in tough terrains
Somewhere in jagged plains
Somewhere in rugged mountains
Somewhere in thicketed montanes
Somewhere in brutal bushes
Somewhere in shriveling shrubs
Shallow graves of their immature bones
Their carrions lay leaked white by scavengers or time

Lucky him that deaths avoids
Lucky him that deaths mercy observes
Lucky him that deaths shyly eludes
Fortunate him it sympathetically spares
Lives in agony of pain and guilt
Lives in fears of loyalty and liberty
Lonely eyes, hollow sorrow, mourning souls,
Empty heart, mad tampered mind, tempered looks….
Him, innocent Conscripts, Children of War!

© Kìùra Kabiri. All rights reserved.

The pitched shrill of the whistle sounds
the explosions can be felt deep underground
the mass of men scream and shout
the conscripts are all moving out
the Germans sit there waiting for us
all we can do is move forward, its a must
They took over our land, it makes me so mad
So I am here, at Stalingrad

1 million Afghans and 15,000 Soviet conscripts died
Fought with American guns

Foreign nations had tried for centuries to conquer Afghanistan
In the 1970's it became a focus for the superpowers

To Moscow, a friendly Afghanistan was important

Afghanistan's new leader looked to the Soviet Union for support
The Soviet Union sent advisors to advance socialism

Land was taken from large owners
And handed to the peasants who worked it

Women were encouraged to stop wearing veils
And were put into literacy classes with men

The reforms were seen to threaten ancient customs
And the authority of the Mullahs

The Mullah says,
"God has decided who is rich and who is poor,
It can't be changed by communists."

Opponents of the reforms
Burned down schools and universities
Resistant grew throughout the country

Iranians joined in
Calling for a Jihad
Against the communists

The U.S. thought
That the Soviets might use the Afghan crisis
To move south
And seize the oil of the Persian Gulf

Meanwhile the Shah of Iran was overthrown
The U.S. lost its most important ally in the region
The U.S. considered the possibility of a Soviet controlled Iran

Carter sent the Mujahideen equipment,
Mostly communication equipment
They were mostly peasants

Recruits for the Jihad walked for days
Across the mountains to reach the fighting

Soviet trained Afghan army
Thousands of men deserted
Kabul requested Soviet troops

Afghan president met with Soviet leader

The Soviets feared the spread of Islamic fundamentalism
Into Afghanistan from Iran
The Soviets felt they had to send troops to stabilize the region
Moscow hoped they could complete their mission in weeks

Moscow had Amin assassinated
They didn't like him talking with the Americans

At the United Nations
The invasion of the Soviet Union was condemned

The Soviets began with large sweeps
Their approach was a disaster
Mujahideen remained in the villages
Guerilla fighters remained in the mountains

Reagan stepped up aid to the Mujahideen

The Mujahideen were spilt along tribal lines
They sometimes fought each other

A war fought with our gold
And their blood
According to CIA man

The U.S. viewed the conflict in Afghanistan as an internal
Cold War struggle
The U.S. provided assistance to anti-Soviet forces
Through the Pakistani intelligent services

The Red Army changed tactics
And took to the air
Soviet commandos
Dropped in by helicopters

Soviet aircraft bombing indiscriminantly
Village after village pummeled into oblivion
Then overrun by Soviet troops
The village men who refused to join the Afghan army were murdered

Thousands of civilians killed in Soviet atrocities

The mujahideen attacked Soviet convoys
2,000 Soviets died each year
The war seemed pointless to the Soviet soldiers

The mujahideen favored sabotage operations and assassinations
The Stinger missiles were effective for them as well

Reagan said,
"To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters
Battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom."

The war lasted almost a decade
The early foundations of al-Qaeda
Were allegedly built on relationships
And weaponry that came from billions
Of dollars in U.S. support for the Mujahideen

Scholars have argued that Bin laden was outside
Of CIA eyesight
And that there is no support for the claim
That the CIA funded Bin Laden

A soft, imploring cry
peels from far and wide
from the silted lives of
mercenaries and conscripts,
the coagulated blood of still lifes
leached from stented veins
and strained for national pride

A quiet, solemn echo
bounces off re-sodded hills
and re-capped mountains
of voices muted in their prime
so that indentured revelers
might joyfully trumpet
an unrequited melody
of garnished freedom
and varnished liberty

The curdling wind plays taps
to the itinerant bones
on reefs and ocean bottoms
now hollowed by corrosive waves
of land-faring vagabonds who
continuously pare their calcified genes

Bottled tears that will never drain
remain untapped on distant shores
as their pilfering descendants
salt the museums and memorials
with their gratuitous patronage

Vagabond with an empty carboy
Searching through the murk of starlight
Drip the molten ice of winter harsh
And the blooms of his past repitoire
Engulfed inside the ethanol marsh

Conscripts fly through bus of steel
Tails of fire and smoky heal
Through the scar shred ****** sand
And rain a glass downpour
That licked a smile to open addiction

Barrel wash and nebulous hide
The screams in blur of addled mind
Red heat burn the hand with shrapnel
Bodies piled in empty screams
Weave through open mouths their spell

Rolls of tracks and wheeled anger
Windows filled by smiles and raining tears
Cobble graves for those who pass
And carafes for relinquished hands
That cannot escape the felt triggered blast

Flower fields like dispersed astral clouds
Colours sharp as bayonets downed
And rusted worn their armaments
Leave in beauty and fictioned dream
For those who died least be their penance

New asteroids collage in belts
Learn the easiness of their strikes
Have fury boiled by worldly ties
And over brims of forges rise
For they must learn their mental cries

Haggard ruins of their youthful posture
Scars and stains litter uniformed closure
The realities nothing can be described
So shall their children not expect
How holding embers in their grip will blind

Threats in words that once were death
Borders crossed without their step
History just words and relics for sons
And in the eyes blanked with the horror
Lest they be forgotten by any one

Soak whom dines on gangling relief
Desire the amnesiac amber thief
But teachers cannot misplace their sight
Have nothing left for meeting glance
Of a innocent smile asking their right

Stand tall with shaking wounded legs
Shell shocked craters as red pegs
In the global map always in shift
Have lessons for the ones whom wish
To know the proper and the wrong we missed

Dwarfs inside the void of matterless
Black blend into the snowy countenance
While burn the brightness of their parents
From ago before repeated actions
Watch fires live in vivid visions

See the tortured starving faces
Break into a knowing grin
As spectral shadows for the lush
To keep their finger always *****
To the evidence we left so much

Tribute to the fallen
Guardians of the union

Accolade to the warriors
Combatants sworn

Standing straight
Before their Lord

Eulogy to the brave
Salvo of respect

Applause to the Eagles
Conscripts of the sky

Medal of the departed
Proud on their shoulders

Offering to our cadaverous
Salute to our gone brethren

Gone, not forgotten
We think them dead

We perceive them not
Living are they,
in their love of the Lord