Poem on the Eve of War
We will make war on our own
We make war and kill our own
We call those we kill the Other
We will kill our own and call them
by another name.
When we point the laser,
set the radar, pull the trigger
load uranium depleted shells into our tanks
We will write a letter home to our wives
"Pray for me honey, I've got a job to do..."
We will fear our enemy, who is himself afraid
We will hate the way the fear changes us
We who were once farmers who loved the land
Will plot the destruction of farms, and cities
and
We will make war on a people to kill a man
We will make war to kill an idea
And rising from exploded farms will be the smoke
The smoke will rise from factories and towns
Above the conflagration the smoke will rise
The unexploded idea will bond with molecules of air
And above the Earth the air will fill the skies
And we will breathe that air and become the idea
we went to war to kill...
Who will pray for us then?