Albert Einstein Poems: Interpretation by Michael R. Burch, “These are “poems” I created from Albert Einstein quotes, changing a word here and there for the sake of meter and rhyme…“
But heroism on command,
senseless violence,
and all the loathsome nonsense
that goes by the name of patriotism:
how passionately I hate them!
Perfection of means
and confusion of ends
seem to characterize our age
and it has become appallingly obvious
that our technology
has exceeded our humanity,
that technological progress
is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal,
and that the attempt to combine wisdom and power
has only rarely been successful
and then only for a short while.
It is my conviction
that killing under the cloak of war
is nothing but an act of murder.
(I do not know what weapons
World War III will be fought with,
but World War IV will be fought
with sticks and stones.)
Oh, how I wish that somewhere
there existed an island
for those who are wise
and of goodwill!…
In such a place even I
would be an ardent patriot,
for I am not only a pacifist,
but a militant pacifist.
I am willing to fight for peace,
for nothing will end war
unless the people themselves
refuse to go to war.
Our task must be to free ourselves
by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature and its beauty.
And peace cannot be kept by force;
it can only be achieved by understanding.
–from Allpoetry
