I have watched the habits of men: seen how
They articulate all that is best in them,
Spread it across screens, write books and now
Talk up the Justice of War - no words can stem
Their great belief in their absolute right,
This is their world and they call all the shots,
An easy land where simple answers lie
That lead them in their morality to fight
And ultimately for their ‘good’ to die
And if not die then ultimately to kill,
Perhaps in far-off, distant, arid lands
Where your blood, their blood, is easy to spill
And where the bullet changes, cancels plans.
It is not easy seeing all these Fools
Reap the whirlwind of a war they fought before
Going into battle, fought long ago when
Their minds were young and easy bent, mere tools,
And habits pushed in, unchallenged, then
Became their Reality. But why care ?
A foreign war amounts to nothing much,
And who is bothered whether or not it’s fair ?
Ah! Great deeds and all that Dumb Nonsense, such
Is the conviction of ‘Good’ producing
Death in Spades, a battalion of evils,
The dismal rampaging of gung-ho fools
Carrying out highly trained unthinking
With minds accustomed to clear, good rules.
But wait! This is no foreign war, it’s here!
The mind balks, throws strange fits, wonders how to cope,
Recoils in abject, blatant, baffled fear,
Looks around for even the tiniest hope
And finds it in those screenfuls of Gods, newspapers,
A history that spells out how ‘Our Way’
Was always best, how freedom’s necessary foil
Was always War, and explains how adventures
Such as this are a nation’s undeserved toil
Where Right, allied with Might, will prove the victor
In a war against the Forces of Darkness:
Such are the painted mirrors we use to see
Our lives, the illusions that we Blessed
Surround ourselves with from birth, the unthinking
Tourniquets to open minds applied so long now
That all that’s left is a withered ability
To listen, and None to hear, a linking
Of the past and Certainty, and of how Strong
We are, to the future and all that’s weak:
Some great circle here, some cycle we must break.
But I am full of fear that few will seek
To knock down mental walls that surely will take
Great effort: forgive me my disbelief,
But it seems easier to lash out than face
Unpalatable Truths, simpler to shut
Out Cause and Effect and focus on Grief
And Righteous Anger than be forced to put
The world in new perspective. So let us sigh
And bend our minds to War: not to the fight -
The poisonous have already spread their battle-cry,
The ‘With-Us-Or-Against-Us’ lack of sight -
But to beating dull acceptance, sheer despair
At the inevitable foolishness
Our whipped-up, primitive ragings lead us to.
Time, then, for those who see the coming dark to prepare
For Tumult and Tides, whilst trying to live True.
Oct. 2001
