God is in the Machine of War

Ellah knows...

The truth is,
sending off to war
is to invite a loss
of identity, a loss
of a sense of self.

War is costly,
that much
everyone
understands.
The French
risked and lost
everything
to give
the American colonists
a fighting chance.

A lot of things
haven't been the same
since.

Malick made
a Vietnam movie
set in WWII,
like a slap
in the face
to those
who still
believed
that war
wasn't a curse
to America.

I tell you,
times are hard.
People are
surprised
that this man
called Petraeus
is achieving
results, a general,
because we
haven't known
true military prowess
since we trumped it up,
either set against
an American flag,
or with Schwarzkopf
and Powell, the man
who took the fall.
All the soldiers
in politics now,
fought in
ignominy.
The last one
to obtain office
was a celluloid cowboy.

***

We all have
our battles.
I suppose
as good a reason
as any
to walk,
is the thought
that I may
eventually
get run over.
It will be
a victimless crime,
the driver
won't have struck
another vehicle,
and I will have had
it coming,
just another vagrant
on the road.

***

It's hard to say
what war is.

War is
a means to
contend issues,
of whatever kind,
just a way
to act out
aggression.

War is
a melody,
the refrain
of civilization.

War is
no different now
than it has ever been,
and yet
at the same,
nothing resembling
what it used
to be.

War is
wrong
but
war is.

War is
an excuse
to say
give peace a chance,
even though
we would never
know it
if it came.

War is
not combat
but a faceless extension
of the basic intolerance
man holds against
himself.

War is
because
war has to be.

***

I would like
to think
the Metaphysics of Value
guarantee
all this
has been no big waste
of time,
but there is never
such a guarantee.