We are lost
Lost to the fissure of war
Broken and turned.
Our leaders wish us starved
Or broken under combat.
They stir the Medes
Miles upon the great divides
Of sea and land and plateau.
Chariots thunder their wheels;
Great men and armies sail across oceans.
Why did the modest man get silenced?
Why did his breath get stolen from his pipe?
Why do we cower and be afraid
Of a phantom in the night?
As if death, if chosen,
Were not the better option.
Death haunts us,
His specter looms into every window.
Rather than make us fat, and nourished,
And allow the little Indians to eat,
The little Arabs and Medes and Persians
For our fat they must die.
Why do men follow the will of governments
Who send them overseas to do harm’s bidding?
Why do they march to wardrums
And hate what they will not understand?
Why, why, do we contemplate war
In an age which could prosper every man?
B. K. Neifert 