A bullet wound centuries old

In my eyes I must behold

A tale told for a thousand years

Laden with a million tears

Leathered hands, face, heart, to the core

Burned from toxic touch of war

Gentle earth ripped and torn

Spat upon and bled with scorn

Silent towns cower in the monstrous night

This monster laughs, what a delight!

For he is war and he is proud

Spewing hatred in a noxious cloud

He runs through cities, runs into homes

Sees the people for their bones

How high they stack, how far they go!

Bones in graves deep below

Bones of red, fresh and warm

Bones of dust, gone with the storm

Shattered men clutch missing limbs

Others loot to every whim

See, even when he’s gone, he’s all around

Scampering about, waiting to be found

He loves to see those empty eyes

That remember the fallen with broken cries

He laughs at every child’s nightmare

Each one crippled with the evening’s scare

It never leaves, this maddened creation

It hides in the folds of our very nation

It slips in the pockets of every politician

Hides in the hair of those swollen with ambition

Wrapped around a little finger

Everywhere War will linger

“Money!” he cries to the waving flag

And in the dirt stars and stripes drag

The dirt is soaked with liquid red

Ten thousand mothers mourn their dead

They fight for a cause they cannot see

Obscured by lies and obscenity

Fueled by raging chauvinism

War creates a tar-black schism

In my throat I feel it seep

And now for mercy I beg and weep

But why should war pause for me?

Why hear my desperate plea?

It is only the voice of a thousand faces 

My ending in a trillion cases

That could pierce red armor with voices of arrows

Cease the blood that roars like spring narrows

And now I fear that I must leave

This war torn hell to seek reprieve

And now with my final breath

I’ll say that war is all about—