War Is a War Crime

Once wars were fought with sticks and stones to flog the flesh and batter bones and conquer lands, defending thrones - though gods provoke, not one atones. The multitude (by hordes beset with battle-ax or bayonet) braved blades, dyed red and dripping wet - the stains were wiped with no regret. When raining blood, the teardrops spill, enough to drown the daffodil that withers in the mourning chill - who was it said 'thou shalt not kill'? The mad machine's now mechanized, torment and torture legalized, blind barbarism globalized and wrath of demons sanitized. Each rival's right (whichever side) committing holy homicide in names of gods diversified - like Cain and Abel fratricide. Above, a Drone that terrifies - a button's pushed, a missile flies to rip apart, to vaporize (defending life, they fantasize). Dismembered victims everywhere, most, non-combatants, unaware - a lone survivor, solitaire, unfolding hands, too late for prayer. Beneath the dust, a baby lies with mouth agape, with bleeding eyes, arrayed in death that money buys - though warriors watch, none empathize. The media's impervious - in truth they're ever devious for fear that reason's dangerous, find every question treasonous. Through eyes lit up like rosy sores, embedded scribes report on wars with tales to line the cuspidors - the Fourth Estate? A herd of whores. To paint the slaughter civilized, objective news is sodomized - when foreign streets smoke, pulverized, the body counts are minimized. Big Berthas boomed in days of yore but now the tanks spit spikes of Thor and mortar shells like raindrops pour upon the lands of Nevermore. The grumble of a hand grenade is drowned in claps of cannonade - assorted charnel chunks lie flayed in battlefields where kids once played. Somewhere a sniper's bullet flies, somewhere a voiceless victim dies, somewhere a famished orphan cries while weapons warble lullabies. The bunker busters burst the sides of dwellings where mankind resides and innocence in darkness hides - the die is cast, but who decides? Use cluster bombs and barrels too, (crude critters in the wartime zoo), to shred more souls than hitherto - choose death en masse, avoid the queue! The leaders lead (twelve steps behind), enmeshed in intrigues, well enshrined - yes, powers, business (so entwined) pull twisted threads, ensnare mankind. The mercenaries hack and maim (god's creatures crippled, morally lame), do beastly things that none will name - well-paid for such, they feel no shame. The napalm bombs and phosphorus and ghastly weapons gaseous are scattered widely, bounteous - behold the desert wilderness! Yes, Agent Orange burns slow and calm, may leave behind a blazing palm (or better yet, a molten mom inside a hut) in Vietnam. And phosphorous… its flame so white, exploding, falling through the night, commemorates the Sacred Rite - and babes in arms, thus blessed, ignite. Cast chlorine, sarin or VX… a lethal dose (or side effects like blistered lungs) will serve to vex - but death in war? No one objects… Constructing H-bombs's arduous - uranium, depleted thus, can trash a tank with little fuss, cause natal cankers, cancerous. But doomsday warheads (dropped or thrown), ignited, leave the sun outshone - beneath a mass of melted stone lies powdered ash, once flesh and bone. When atoms split in bombs debased, vast cities smolder, laid to waste, a million sinless souls erased - perhaps, one day, all life effaced. You close your eyes but can't ignore that body parts and bags of gore are bursting through golgotha's door, and strewn beyond the ocean's roar like rotting fish that wash ashore. Why can't we stop and end all war… POSTSCRIPT Regard the dreary death Arcade of Armaments (a fruitful trade) and tally up the millions made by ghouls that raise a colonnade of miles of missiles, weapons-grade, in Armageddon's crazed parade, and hide behind a masquerade of lollypops and lemonade while planning new an escapade for sending armies to invade and loot far oil lands, unafraid of misery and grief parlayed until our final days cascade into a hell no more delayed by happenstance or luck outplayed that leaves society decayed, bombarded with a fusillade of lies upheld and truth betrayed by pundits in the shifting shade, and crises of the world clichéd as sung in solemn serenade by journalistic hacks that preyed on wide-eyed folk in sham charade that lulls to sleep with eyelids weighed by tiny tears that disobeyed to stay behind the barricade and bathe the modern-day crusade of war in cheers and accolade. The bottom line? Just profits paid for deadly sins that god forbade…