The War on Terra needs a demon bland:
A frightful monster, vague but always near
Yet half-a-world away in some poor land
Whose people have more reasons us to fear
Than we have rationales for bombing them,
Since what and why we fight is never clear.
Thus, by design, our "leaders" haw and hem
While propaganda paradigms they spew:
The always awful, jaded, jaundiced gem
Of obfuscation mined from last year's stew
Which, like leftovers through the ages, smells
For having in it nothing fresh or new.
So do not ask what words the message spells.
It means just this: no Heaven, only Hells.
The newly knighted president campaigned
To end a badly bungled War on Bad
But now, it seems, he only slyly feigned
A policy he never really had.
In truth, we now can see, he likes the crown
And robes of empire in which lies are clad
And wishes so to earn a rare renown
As one who vanquished “bad” Afghanistan:
Where empires go to stumble, fall, and drown
In dust where poppies grow to hook the man
Addicted to dumb conquest doomed to die
Because a War on Bad can have no plan
But only graves for fools and their élan
Who “stayed the curse” where wise ones cut and ran
So once again, and still, we have engaged
To fight a junkyard dog for his last bone
Down at the bottom of a hole, enraged,
That starving beasts do not just simply moan
And slink away with tails between their legs
But fight – and nasty, too -- for scraps they own
Refusing thus to settle for the dregs
We’ve promised to hand out some later day
While our Great Leader still the question begs:
Why must we working folk consent to pay
For that which gains us nothing but more hurt?
It only seems too clear what we should say,
As Mordred, Arthur’s bastard spawn would blurt:
“The meek inherit not the earth, but dirt!”
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2009