The Box.....

[Bammx2]

“THE BOX”



Once upon a time in the land of hush-a-bye,

around the wonderous days of yore,

They came across a sort of box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks

And labeled, `Kindly do not touch, it's war.'



A decree was issue round about --

All with a flourish and a shout

And a gaily coloured mascot

Tripping lightly on before --

`Don't fiddle with that deadly box

or break the chains or pick the locks

And please don't ever mess about with war.'



Well the children understood,

Children happen to be good

And were just as good around the time of yore.

They didn't try to pick the locks

Or break into that deadly box

And never tried to play about with war.



Mommies didn't either

Sisters, Aunts nor Grannies neither

`Cos they were quiet and sweet and pretty

In those wonderous days of yore,

Well very much the same as now

And not the ones to blame somehow

For opening up that deadly box of war,



But someone did,



Someone battered in the lid

And spilled the insides out across the floor,

A sort of bouncy bumpy ball

made up of flags and guns and all

The tears and horror and the death

That goes with war.



It bounced right out

And went bashing all about

And bumping into everything in store

And what is sad and most unfair

was that it didn't really seem to care

Much who it bumped, or why,

Or what, or for.



It bumped the children mainly

And I'll tell you this quite plainly,

It bumps them everyday and more and more

And leaves them dead and burned and dying
Thousands of them sick and crying,

`Cos when it bumps its very very sore.



There is a way to stop the ball,

It isn't very hard at all,

All it takes is wisdom

And I'm absolutely sure

We could get it back into the box

And bind the chains and lock the locks

But no one seems to want to save the children anymore.



Well that's the way it all appears

`Cos it's been bouncing around for years and years

In spite of all the wisdom wizzed

Since those wonderous days of yore,

And the time they cam across that box

Bound up with chains and locked with locks

And labeled, `Kindly do not touch, it's war.'

 

[Aqua4ever]

Very thought provoking...I'm definately going to remember this one, thanks for posting
Aqua

 

[shesulsa]

Thank you for posting this. :asian:

 

[Lisa]

Awesome. Thank you.

 

[Adept]

Very nice and witty, but I believe it falls slightly wide of the mark.

To me, war epitomises both the high, and the low of humanity. It is a terrible, horrible thing that disfigures everyone it touches. And yet, there are people prepared to endure it so that others do not have to. The fact that people desire to inflict such harm on others is despicable. The fact that people are prepared to suffer through it so that we do not have to is amazingly selfless.

 

[heretic888]

Witty and amusing, but the underlying implications of the poem are evident to anyone who can read.

First off, it carries the liberal self-induced fantasy that all behavior is the result of external, environmental factors. Y'know, with "children beeing born good" and all other sort of nonsense like that. This, of course, goes hand in hand with the beliefs in tabual rasa ("blank slate") and the "noble savage". Which, of course, are all equal manifestations of the fantasy.

Children are born selfish, narcissistic, and self-fulfilling. The ability to even take the perspective (and feelings) of another person into account isn't even firmly developed until at least age five. As ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, it isn't very difficult to see when in humanity's collective evolution that "war" first popped up (hint hint, it wasn't our "adulthood").

Or, you could just take a look at Jane Goodall's citing of warfare among chimps to realize it isn't just "a human thing", that it predates conscious thought, has nothing to do with "civilization" or "technology", and so on. Realism trumps romanticism, it seems.

The other intriguing fantasy seems to be the anti-masculinist themes that, while not outright stated, are there nonetheless. Y'know, the kiddies didn't mess with "the box" and neither did the mommies, aunties, or grammies --- but, hey, who's that leave us with?? That's right: those mean, old menfolk.

Which, of course, is contingent with a whole lot of other feminist-based fantasies --- that men are "significantly" more aggressive than women (not really), that men don't take "care and welfare" into account with their moral reasoning (utter fantasy), that warfare and slavery develops historically only during the agrarian-patriarchies (oh, really??), and (my favorite) that there was some period in human history where all the menfolk tricked, conned, and otherwise fooled the womenfolk to "submit" to them (no evidence for a collective war against the sexes, you see) into buying all this patriarchal nonsense (as opposed to the more sensible theory that the two sexes co-developed all forms of human society alongside one another in a particular cultural-contextual framework).

Fantasies all around, it seems. "Land of hush-a-bye" and "wonderous days of yore" seem to be the most accurate parts of the poem.

Ta ta.

 

[Bammx2]

I just posted this because I thought it was A NICE POEM.
It was NOT for political debate or fanatical drivel.
If you believe the lie "we are all born with sin"....sorry.
I want this thread closed before any other fanatical ideas come about for something just nice and simple.

 

[heretic888]

I just posted this because I thought it was A NICE POEM.
It was NOT for political debate or fanatical drivel.
If you believe the lie "we are all born with sin"....sorry.
I want this thread closed before any other fanatical ideas come about for something just nice and simple.

Your intent may have been to "post something nice", but the implications in the poem are there nonetheless.

I didn't mention anything about being "born with sin" (a rather particular religious doctrine). What I am talking about is the result of scientific research within developmental psychology, and not the self-induced fantasies found within said poem. The poem's premises --- tabula rasa, "war" being the result of the mean adults and socialization, men being these mean nasty people by nature --- are fairly obvious.

A nerve has clealry been struck. If the intent was merely to post "something nice", your reaction is quite interesting.