LightNews — News, ranked by scholars

Peter J. King

@rock-rex.bsky.social

"Political Games".

#poem #poetry #skypoets #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #warpoem #thecurlymind

January 3, 2025 at 9:42 AM

Peter J. King

@rock-rex.bsky.social

"...pro aliorum utilitate mori".

#poem #poetry #skypoets #blueskypoets #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #warpoem #warpoetry #wisdomsbottompress #addingcolourtothechameleon

May 5, 2025 at 7:29 PM

Comedy FEEDBACK Film & Screenplay Festival

@comedyfilmfestival.bsky.social

WAR Poetry Reading: THE LAND, by Patrick Trombly

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHXr...

documentaryshortfilmfestival.com/2026/03/04/w...

#warpoem #warstory #wildsound #poet #poetry

WAR Poetry Reading: THE LAND, by Patrick Trombly

YouTube video by Wildsound Festival

www.youtube.com

March 5, 2026 at 10:41 PM

Peter J. King

@rock-rex.bsky.social

"A Game of Chess" (response to “Stalemate” by Hanaa Malallah).

#poem #poetry #skypoets #blueskypoets #poetsofbluesky #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #workshop #hanaamalallah #warpoem

June 11, 2025 at 7:58 PM

Kaz_the_Kumquat

@odragonku.bsky.social

The hatred, gone.
Replaced by a shared stone's shadow,
#History, amended.

🕊️ 🪦

#Remembrance #WarPoem #LestWeForget #ThreeLines #UnknownSoldiers

November 11, 2025 at 11:31 PM

David Alec Knight

@davidalecknight.bsky.social

#nomorewar #antiwarpoem #antiwarpoetry #ukraine #ukraineandrussia #warpoem

June 22, 2025 at 7:12 PM

Mr. Fields Reads Lit

@daf-fields.bsky.social

Hiroshima Crewman, Dan Georgakis #favoritepoems #poem #warpoem #poetry #poetryofinstagram #poetrytok

June 29, 2025 at 11:17 AM

Peter J. King

@rock-rex.bsky.social

Alfred Lichtenstein - "Gebet vor der Schlacht"/"Prayer before Battle" (translation by me)

#poem #poetry #skypoets #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #germanpoem #germanpoetry #warpoem #warpoetry #translation #alfredlichtenstein

January 11, 2025 at 7:10 PM

Festival for Poetry

@poetryfestival.bsky.social

WAR POEM turned to MOVIE. (Plus guaranteed festival acceptances)

wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com/submit/35769...

Accepting any poetry in any genre or length that’s a #WARPoem.

We will turn your #POEM into a MOVIE

#poetryfestival #poetrymovie

WILDsound Writing Festival - WAR POEM turned to MOVIE. (Plus guaranteed festival acceptances)

Accepting any poetry in any genre or length that’s a WAR Poem. We will turn your POEM into a MOVIE. See examples of recent Poetry Movies made of what you'll receive:https://www.wildsound.ca/search?...

wildsoundwritingfestival.submittable.com

September 6, 2026 at 1:30 AM

R. Brassard Ⓥ

@veganrick.bsky.social

#RemembranceDay
#InFlandersFields
#WarPoem
#Cdnpoli

November 11, 2025 at 7:11 AM

The Aiming Circle

@aimingcircle.bsky.social

#warpoetry #warpoem #giantrobotpoems

DeRicki Johnson @derickijohnson.bsky.social · Nov 7

Can’t pinpoint time
In #history
Humans
Got so dumb

Now heartless A.i.
Rules the World—
Hunting us
For fun

At 1st
We weren’t worried
Becuz we
Had all the guns,

Forgot
How to fix them, tho
So now
We’re on the run…

Hiding
In the sewers
Eating maggots
On a bun 🤢
#vss365

a robot is standing next to a tank that says xix on the side

ALT: a robot is standing next to a tank that says xix on the side

media.tenor.com

November 7, 2025 at 4:19 PM

KansasWoman

@kansaswoman.bsky.social

#LyubaYakimchuk #WordsForWar #poetry #poet #poets #poem #poems #UkrainePoetry #UkrainianPoetry #UkrainePoem #UkrainianPoem #UkrainePoems #UkrainianPoems #UkrainePoet #UkrainePoets #Ukraine #Ukraini #war #warpoetry #warpoem

October 2, 2025 at 12:14 AM

Peter J. King

@rock-rex.bsky.social

"...pro aliorum utilitate mori"

#poem #poetry #skypoets #blueskypoets #poetsofbluesky #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #warpoetry #warpoem #oddchallenge
@zoomburst.substack.com

The politicians, parsons, and the owners
of the press, they danced the measure
given them by makers of munitions.
They sprayed the language of the grave
from spittle-shining lechers’ lips:
the love of country.

We didn’t give our lives, nor lay them down;
our leaders wrapped them up in khaki,
navy blue, or grey, and tossed them in the grave
to serve political ambition.

We made no gallant sacrifice;
our leaders laid us on their altars —
ripping out our hearts, they dipped
their paper poppies in our blood
and pinned them on the swelling chests
of politicians, parsons, and the owners
of the press.

They pinned them onto children
while they murmured their seductive lies
of honour, pride, and glory.

The politicians, parsons, and the owners
of the press, they danced the measure
given them by makers of munitions.
They sprayed the language of the grave
from spittle-shining lechers’ lips:
the love of country.

earlier version published in "Adding Colours to the Chameleon"
(2016, Wisdom’s Bottom Press)

August 3, 2026 at 1:15 PM

Xanthe

@xanthe91.bsky.social

#poetry #spokenword #warpoem #streetart #graffitipoetry #resistance #artivism
youtube.com/shorts/XDLxY...

#poetry #spokenword #warpoem #streetart #graffitipoetry #resistance #artivism

YouTube video by Xanthe

youtube.com

January 26, 2026 at 3:59 PM

KansasWoman

@kansaswoman.bsky.social

#MargaretAtwood #PaperBoat #poet #poets #poetry #poem #poems #war #warpoetry #warpoem #civilwar #fascism #fascist #fascists #torture #murder

September 18, 2025 at 11:24 PM

lesleyscoble.bsky.social

@lesleyscoble.bsky.social

A House in Dresden: War poem (and audio)

A grand house went. The street fell silent. #poetry #spokenword #historicalmemory #warpoem #minimalistverse #elegiac #sombercadence #artandpoetry #creativewriting #instapoetry

A House in Dresden: War poem (and audio)

A grand house went. The street fell silent. #poetry #spokenword #historicalmemory #warpoem #minimalistverse #elegiac #sombercadence #artandpoetry #creativewriting #instapoetry

lesleyscoble.com

December 11, 2025 at 11:06 PM

KansasWoman

@kansaswoman.bsky.social

#MariannaKiyanovska #WordsForWar #UkrainePoets #UkrainePoetry #UkranianPoets #UkranianPoetry #War #WarPoem #UkraineWar #WarPoetry #WarriorPoet #poet #poets #poetry #poem #poems #Ukraine #Ukrani #UkraineArt #art #UkraineWriters #UkraineWriting #UkraineArtists #SlavaUkraine #SlavaUkraini

August 29, 2025 at 12:26 AM

KansasWoman

@kansaswoman.bsky.social

#SerhiyZhadan #WordsOfWar #UkrainePoetry #UkrainianPoetry #UkrainePoet #UkrainianPoets #UkrainePoem #UkrainianPoem #UkrainePoems #UkrainianPoems #poetry #poetrysky #poem #poems #poet #poets #war #warpoetry #warpoem #Ukraine #Ukrainian #Ukraini #UkraineArt #UkraineArtist
#SlavaUkraini #SlavaUkraine

August 26, 2025 at 11:50 PM

Peter J. King

@rock-rex.bsky.social

Four poems on war.

#poem #poetry #skypoets #blueskypoets #poetsofbluesky #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #warpoetry #warpoem

There is a small child lying in the dark,
a tight-pulled knot of hunger, thirst, and fear,
not knowing what has happened to her home
and friends
and parents.
Though she doesn’t understand,
she has a hard-gained sick familiarity
with sharp small-arms fire, dull explosions,
shattered buildings, falling dust,
has grown accustomed to the screams
and to the screaming silence,
waking and in dream.

She can’t remember who she is —
has lost her name, her playfulness,
her curiosity, affection, warmth.

She can’t remember where she lived:
in Syria, or Yemen, or Sudan, or Palestine,
Iraq, Ukraine, Somalia....?
So many lands she might have once called
home;
they’ve merged
into a broken nightmare,
filled with smoke.

It billows from a burnt-out tank,
from blocks of flats and hospitals,
from camp-fires,
crematoria, and cigarettes
that glow in sentried night —
smoke is the substance,
grief the form of war.

1917
Grandad died badly: drowned
in a sucking, claggy trench at dawn,
face down, lungs burning
as they strained and failed to fill.
Grandma maybe had it worse; she
might have lived, but something
in her broke the day the village fell,
and she was raped too many times
to count. She slit her wrists, and then –
impatient, maybe – cut her throat.
Their neighbour made it through all right,
unharmed and sitting on a tidy profit
from the sale of bayonets and boots.

1943
Dad died badly too, I’m told: roasted
as he struggled to escape his tank,
lungs seared with smoke and superheated air.
Mum almost made it, joined a group
of refugees that straggled down a road
all overhung with willow and with
Old Man’s Beard that hid them from the
strafing planes — but they were found
by soldiers from one side or the other, all the
women raped, then shot and left to lie.
Their neighbour spent the war in Switzerland,
and ended up a millionaire:
munitions and black-market booze.

2014
My body’s lain here underneath the rubble
for a week or so. My wife was at her mother’s
when they shelled our house; I heard her
when she came back looking for me, but
my mouth was shrivelled up with thirst,
my lungs collapsed, I couldn’t call,
not even when I heard them find her
and my little daughter, when the two
were raped and raped again, then casually shot.
Still, B.A.E. and Hewlett Packard and the rest
will have good news for shareholders this year.

The politicians, journalists, the vicars
and the priests —they danced the measure
given them by makers of munitions.
They sprayed the language of the grave
from spittle-shining lechers’ lips:
the love of country.

I did not give my life for any cause —
my leaders wrapped them up in khaki, grey, or tan,
tossed them away to serve
commercial and political ambitions.
I did not make a sacrifice —
they threw me down upon an altar
and cut out my heart,
dyed little scraps of paper with my pulsing
blood and pinned them on the chests
of politicians, journalists, of vicars
and of priests. They pinned them onto
children while they murmured their seductive lies
of honour, pride, and glory.

Would wars be shorter if,
instead of solemn notices
when loved ones fell,
our letterboxes rattled with
a sick parade of letters giving
details of our loved ones’ kills?

March 4, 2026 at 8:35 PM

Woad Bluegum

@woadbluegum.bsky.social

"Ode to the Inspector"

When in the barrack-room you lie,
and take your nightly rest,
you'll dream of stacks of timber,
and a lousy moisture test...

#Poem #Poetry #WarPoem #WWII #FoundHistory

"Ode to the Inspector"

When in the barrack-room you lie,
and take your nightly rest,
you'll dream of stacks of timber,
and a lousy moisture test.

You'll dream of screws and shakes and splits,
loose knots and resin and sap,
and Agla, Jolimbo, Parana and Teak,
and timber all over the map.

You'll wake in the morning and think, "'twas a dream",
And grin all over your fan,
You've broken the bunch, got out of it all,
Another "t'went" carries the "can".

- Sincerely yours, R. Moore-Nett

May 11, 2026 at 1:38 AM

Ultramarine Literary Review

@ultramarinelitrev.bsky.social

A new nature and war poem by John Brantingham is now out on our site, check it out below!

#litmag #literarymagazine #revistachilena #revistaliteraria #warpoem #naturepoetry #bookblog #litjournal #publishing #editorial #cows #bovinepoetry #journal
www.ultramarinereview.com/post/its-son...

Its Song Across the Pastures

by John BrantinghamTo the woman, that far off whine soundsa bit like the nuclear air raid sirensthey ran in her girlhood.That was the city in the 1960s,and this is now way out in the country.She doubt...

www.ultramarinereview.com

August 19, 2025 at 1:34 AM

Olena Kuzmina

@lenkalesoleil.bsky.social

Primo Levi (1919–1987), an Italian Jewish chemist & Holocaust survivor, died on April 11, 1987, after a fall from his third-floor apartment in Turin. Many sources, including police reports at the time, recorded his death as a suicide.

#primolevi #inmemory #warpoem