PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Play the drum roll!
Enlist the naive
young men who played
hockey and lacrosse
in high school.
Who got laid at
their proms.
Drank with their buddies.
Planned their futures.
Dreamed their dreams.
Tell them they have to
defend freedom.
Play them songs of
heroism and pride.
Show them pretty
pictures of foreign women.
Insist they should be
proud of such a “career”.
'The few and the brave!'
'The mighty and proud!'
Dress them in the
same green uniform.
Shout at them.
Destroy their
will to think.
Give them guns and
banners to carry.
Make up an enemy
teach them to hate.
Send them far away
to a country they've
read about in
magazines.
March them.
Parade them.
Deploy them.
Set them against
other young men
who were dreamed
into the same nightmare.
Let the two sides
come into battle.
The ultimate hero
contest for young men!
Brittle bombs.
Knives, destruction.
A good cause!

When you are finished
using their youth,
send some of them home
shattered and afraid.
Keep some for tomorrow's
new headline war.
For the dead, send home
a flag to their mothers.
Don't forget to tell
the grieving families
that their sons
died
for freedom!