The Metaphysics of War

War is funny.

Every war is the direct result
of the war before it.

Chances are
if you don't
understand one,
you won't the other.

But I would hope
if you do one,
you do the other.

Except we've reached
a point where
we spent one war
laughing at another,
and the next
still mourning
the last,
while the granddaddy
remains idolized,
even though
it remains
the worst of all.

Maybe that's why.
We try and escape,
to pretend,
because we still
like doing that,
even as we mature,
a rock band in the 80s
being the last
to look fondly
on us,
just as we ended
a cold third war,
which in its silence
was the most deadly
of the last century,
undeclared
and fought everywhere,
after two "world wars."

Every war concerns the world,
but we can silence that, too.

George-22
is the real victim,
the joke,
the jester,
the last man in the room,
when everyone else
has fled.
He is the most alone
with the myths,
and if you could see him,
late at night,
you would see him cry.