Thoughts Reading The News
* * *
You know what I read in Time Magazine
I read about wars where I'd never been
I read a respectable way was thought to be
to respond to an offence militarily

Thoughts reading the news

I read that positions
of power in conflicts
were supposed to be
the only solutions

I read about armor and fire and blood
about orphans crying and people dying
I read about euphoria, passion, and hate,
canon fodder, war's said to be great

Thoughts reading the news

And I looked at the pictures,
drowning in ruins
pieces of dead bodies
smoke in the air

You know what I saw
in Time Magazine
I saw hints of hell,
and it worked, as I've seen

I looked at the pictures of soldiers in arms
in the shadow of their helmets their eyes do glance
they don't seem to triumph or like what they've done
they don't seem to think it's great that they won

they look grim and stubborn and they cannot smile
they cannot be happy and they dare not die