Give Me Another War

Come, give me another war To keep the terror at bay;
We'll keep them all out of our country By attacking them far away.
We'll kill their sons and their daughters And call it all necessary
(To bludgeon the neighbor who threatens Is good, right, and salutary).

Come, give me another war Like the one we waged in Iraq,
When first we went in for their weapons, In a righteous preemptive attack;
But when they weren't there we still clamored That they were Al Qaeda's friend,
Till soon the more accurate picture Brought that desperate story to end.

But there still had to be a good reason To send off our sons to die,
And so the cruel works of the tyrant Were postured to public eye;
But still all the many he murdered Is yet not as many as we
Have slain in our wars and embargoes To lay down democracy.

And then the Iraqi people Showed what their voting would do,
How Muslims aren't Western-enlightened; how jihad is nothing new.
Their democratic elections Have spurned all our children's blood;
Our democratic crusaders Have died for the enemies' good.

Come, give me another battle, A war that dispels every threat;
Come, marshal with borrowed money! Come, fight to increase our debt!
And don't you dare try to accuse us Of squandering our goodwill,
Or say that bad things will happen Because we meddle and kill.

Don't say this world's superpower Is shackled by codes of yore;
There can be no apologizing For what we have done before;
There can be no acknowledgment given For anything wrong that we've done;
There can only be the conviction That we ran our race and we won.

And the traumatized families and soldiers Are the price that we all must pay
To keep us a freer country While we peddle our rights away;
And if we would be patriotic We would certainly give more pow'r
To the very same people who fooled us Into letting them tax us more.

Come, give me another war, That keeps this old world in check,
That wards off from untold millions Inevitable ruin and wreck.
Come, be with me realistic, And see our worst enemies there
Where we have done nothing to hurt them; Where we have instilled no fear.

And if you don't give me this war, Then how can this world survive?
For only coercion and bloodshed Keep the free and the brave alive.
And don't you go talking naively Of defense that won't intervene;
For then we would truly be guilty Of wars that should never have been.

Parity

Is fairness more than avoiding a portion unequal?

Must every excellence have for its glory a sequel?  

Kinder by far Nature's purer discrimination:

Every flower that vaunts in her haughty flirtation,

Noticed more quickly, dies sooner for her emulation.   

A Wall Street

I don't know what a wall street is.

I think that something happens there
of which we're mostly unaware;
I do know what just isn't fair:
for all their shares they cannot share,

and you know what the proverb says,

"A fool and his money are soon...

              bailed out?

I don't know what a wall street is.

Monotony

Is tedium as tiring as they say?
Some people want it every single day.
Could boredom be the modern human's sin?

Is leisure as destructive as I see?
Some harder-working people might agree...
But who can fight this apathy and win?

To get a job is more than money's love,
Since work itself can never be enough,
We need to work and rest and love within.

Paul Laurence Dunbar:

Paul Laurence Dunbar

          For a biography of this great black American poet, you may turn to this website.

          Dunbar shows himself equal to the task of English poetry in his fluid adaptation and alteration of traditional meters.  His odes have the effect of dancing with frequent enjambment that shows no awkwardness.

         And this skill he takes into the colloquial language of his fellow African-Americans, lifting this dialect to stand and rival, even surpass, what was then reckoned proper English. 

         Besides the poem I offer below, I recommend the following poems for an introduction to Dunbar's pleasant genius:

An Ante-Bellum Sermon   The Paradox    We Wear the Mask 

A SONG is but a little thing,
And yet what joy it is to sing!
In hours of toil it gives me zest,

And when at eve I long for rest;

When cows come home along the bars,

          And in the fold I hear the bell,

As Night, the shepherd, herds his stars,

          I sing my song, and all is well.

There are no ears to hear my lays,

No lips to lift a word of praise;

But still, with faith unfaltering,

I live and laugh and love and sing.

What matters yon unheeding throng?

          They cannot feel my spirit's spell,

Since life is sweet and love is long,

           I sing my song, and all is well.

My days are never days of ease;

I till my ground and prune my trees.

When ripened gold is all the plain,

I put my sickle to the grain.

I labor hard, and toil and sweat,

          While others dream within the dell;

But even while my brow is wet,

          I sing my song, and all is well.

Sometimes the sun, unkindly hot,

My garden makes a desert spot;

Sometimes a blight upon the tree

Takes all my fruit away from me;

And then with throes of bitter pain

          Rebellious passions rise and swell;

But -- life is more than fruit or grain,

          And so I sing, and all is well.