Name and Address Withheld

The following views expressed

Do not necessarily reflect

Those of the prevailing

Order, who prostrate to

Their naked kings, tailor the seams of

Funeral shrouds on foreign shores,

But shed no tears for the dead

The dead of the endless list of

Informal wars – the justification for

Will be spelled out for me coming soon

To a screen, to a screen, near me, near you.

I'm feeling less hopeful

And so much less human

As my days are reduced to

Little more than

Settling for revenge

And wondering whatever happened to the kid that pledged

Chalk it up to an overdeveloped sense of unbridled vengeance.

Somebody fed me too much New Hope for breakfast,

Cause as the empire preemptively strikes back

Again and the voice of Luke's father

Baritones this is CNN

I recall Arab kids slaughtered reduced

To sand-niggers and rag-heads.

And now I'm expected to mourn

Dead Americans?

The executioner's willing citizens?

I'm so sorry

And I'm trying to think it through,

But when the chickens came home to roost

And hand-delivered

And hand-delivered

Matching funeral urns

To the bully that never learns

I could've swore I heard a chorus rise and fall

Wishing them so many more unhappy returns.

But in every war waged,

Only kings emerged unscathed.