My stoma's just a minor sore

MY STOMA’S JUST A MINOR SORE.

My stoma’s just a minor sore
compared to people waging war,
for war will keep me up at night
because I feel it is not right.

I tend to my ablutions and
feel that I can understand
how frustration can arise
from this type of enterprise.

My stoma has some moments when
I find it irritates and then
I have to contemplate my lot 
to see exactly what I’ve got.

When weighing up the good and bad,
comparing it to what I had, 
usually, I will concede
a stoma has been what I need.

So, instead of pondering
on stomas, and go wandering
in my thoughts on negatives,
I’ll concentrate on positives.

This helps me calm my racing mind
until, at last, I seem to find
an inner peace, which helps me to
accept the better point of view.

But when I come to ponder war
it’s more than just a minor sore
that I can think and overcome
the negatives, and I succumb.

I think of war both day and night
because it doesn’t seem quite right
that humans have not learned one bit
from all past wars and all that shit.

                                                B. Withers 2024

You are thinking about war a lot. Do you know someone in a war torn place?

I think as you grow older, having seen a bunch of good and bad, you view war differently than you did as a kid or young adult. When you are young you simply see war as a battle of combatants and you root for your side to win. When you grow older you see it as something more sinister. When thousands of noncombatants, including kids, are killed and shrugged off as collateral damage it hurts. When you see those images of homeless kids and hospital bombings you wonder why. I can't get the image of the napalm baby running down the street in Vietnam out of my head —I hope I never do because it grounds me on who pays the price for war. The tragedy in life is many older adults still view war as they did when they were kids and young adults.

Hello infinitycastle5277.
Thank you for a very interesting and thought-provoking question, which (for me) has a myriad of potential answers.
The simple answer is to say that most of us know of someone who will be caught up in some kind of war (even if it is with themselves).
However, I have decided to answer your question by reproducing the first and last rhymes to my book entitled 'A Civilian War' (2015).
Best wishes

Bill

A CIVILIAN WAR.

When I reflect upon my rhymes
the sentiments reflect the times
when people had to go to war
and then described the things they saw.

War-weary poets would explain
about the hardship and the pain.
They told of battles that were fought
and all the havoc that they wrought

The wartime poet’s specialty
is torture and the cruelty
for within wartime commotion
rhyming verse expressed emotion.

They write about the prevalence
of man’s tendency to violence.
Their passion and their forcefulness
encouraging their viciousness.

My verses open the same door
exposing a civilian war.
A war that’s right here on our street
with vicious people we might meet.

We know the terror they instil
with or without weapons to kill
and though they may go unnoticed
these are the urban terrorists. 

Then in their wake, they leave behind
the symptoms of a trauma’d mind.
From this some never will break free
ending up with PTSD.                      (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)

As a rhymist I need to share 
the feelings of those who’ve been there
and suffered psychologically
as well as often physically.

                                    B. Withers 2014

PEACE ON EARTH.

People have prayed for peace on earth
but what is all that praying worth
if religions support the fight
with each believing that they’re right.

We need to sort the good from bad
from all religions that we’ve had
and live by the generic core
developing esprit de corps.

Personal battles that we know
can’t really be the way to go.
I’m sure we’d stand a better chance
if all the children could advance.

Not just the ones whose quirk of birth
gave them advantage on this earth
but every child - no rich or poor
should live a life that is secure.

A life that’s free from poverty
might mean we don’t own property
for one way we could show we cared
would be if everything was shared.

What we would need is some new laws
to eliminate these wars
and all these laws would need to be
to help us live in harmony.

The sorts of things that we would need 
for peace on earth would not be greed.
It would include some moral law
something that we’ve not seen before.

We all would need to work as one
until this peace on earth gets done.
Creating a fraternity
from now until eternity.

                                    B. Withers 2014