"WAR MASKS" a cautionary poem

Great guns and ammunition
Grosses of shells at half price
A penny a pound of gun powder
Ain't this war grand

Stocks up stocks down
Take a piece here
Take a piece there
Of the action

I never saw a dead man
Don't have to in my glass enclosed coffin
Thirty stories high
Just numbers

Somebody's got to do it
The dirty buisness
Guns don't kill people
they're just machines, working

Bodies
Like so many opium poppies
Red in profusion
Intoxicating

Tanks clanking
Brittle bones breaking
The smell of rotten food
Bad dreams

Sorry, I can't use you
Nothing personal
Metal fingers scratch
Numbers on painted keyboards

Numbers
Shouldn't feel bad
He was one of thousands
Here's a medal

There's always a reason
You're bad I'm good
You took my marbles
And I'll mash in your brains

Brains that were made to think
Build and solve problems
Create art, love
Short circuited

Short sighted
Short tempered
Short of breath
In a fox hole

There are too many of em anyway
Not enough food, space
The population exploded
Exploded the population

The will of Allah
Holy War
War to make the world safe
For what?

Great sleek erotic engines
Piled in rows
Like crosses I once saw in Flanders
Enough power to kill everything for miles
For centuries

R. Royce (c) 1982

Rocket image-Pixabay