Warmonger

No bullet can penetrate my new skin,
Sleek and orange and exquisitely thin.
I'm so perfect now, a parade of me
Runs past the black flags of the armory.
I'm joined by a smart, lock-loaded army.
As we march, everyone behind his hood,
Goose-stepping, a phalanx — might over good —
We stare down the innocent and swarthy.

Another War

I drew a high number the last year of the draft,
But a childhood disease would have kept me 4-F.
I have a misshapen hip and couldn't force-march
Or negotiate a pitching deck, fore to aft.
I lost no friend or brothers to war; no one left
My high school to volunteer; no triumphal arch,
No memorial was erected in our town,
No first-hand accounts of battle were written down.
The nightly news showed all there was to see of death
And defeat: we lose each war the minute one man
Fails to open his eyes or to take a next breath,
And new wars start soon enough, because they can.
We launch and drop bombs and bombs and more bombs,
Generously, Samaritans offering alms.