(lyrics in search of a tune)
What will we do warless with our warriors?
What will we do warless with our ghosts?
Warless, how will we fill up the hours?
Self-medicate, recite old threadbare boasts?
And what will we do warless for employment?
Can killers land an ordinary job?
In peacetime, when we get an itch for plunder,
what warrant do we have to loot and rob?
What will we do warless for adventure?
How will we obtain pacific kicks?
We like our slice of meat a little rarer.
We crave a spot of danger in the mix.
Warless, how will kings command allegiance?
Warless, thieves fall out with brother thieves.
Our industries will lose their purring engine,
their profits thinning like November leaves.
What will we do warless for a future?
What will we do warless with the past?
A well-made plot requires a raging conflict
to earn sweet resolution, home at last.
What will we do warless for a compass?
Relaxed, we’d likely party with the proles.
Unfocused, we might waver with the women.
Thank God for discipline and clearcut goals!
Warless, how will guys shore up their manhood?
The softer talkers need the bigger sticks.
Tall tales of concubines and hunky heroes
get lots of us excited. Even chicks.
And what will we do warless with our anger?
What reason will we find to rape and slay?
Too bad to see our skill sets going begging—
we got so good at blowing enemies away.
What will we do warless with our empire?
Just suck our thumbs, await the reckoning?
The blowback from all corners of the planet,
our ‘hood we trashed like gangsters bickering?
Who’d mothball noble words like “duty,” “honor,”
then look our fading country in the face?
Say what to God, if not “protect our fighters”?
Invoke limp-wristed love and girly grace?
Warless, will we still look strong and righteous?
Warless, won’t we have to mind the dirt?
Who’ll ante up to fix the raging damage,
be patient with the open-ended hurt?
What will we do warless for our glamour?
What will we do warless with our grief?
How will we fare warless in the rubble,
tread lightly on the millions crushed beneath?
Warless, how would we support our warlords?
Torturers and goons might have to hide.
If peace breaks out, our way of life is done for.
We’d rather flirt with species suicide.
We’d rather court a final conflagration.
Bereft of strife, we won’t know what to do.
Great Moloch, grant us what we need to function:
a small world war, a genocide or two.
3 Responses
All we need is Love, Love is All WE need.
( John Lennon )
Imagine,
A world where everybody felt safe,
Where no bombs were falling,
And all the guns were silent.
Where everybody had enough of what they needed,
Nobody had too much,
So no need to defend it.
And joy would take it’s proper place.
Everyone connecting with joy and grace
Everything left in the same place
No losing, no searching, happy to be here
Time to act on those plans, the ones from yesteryears