When the leaders speak of Peace
The common folk know War is coming.
When the leaders curse war,
The mobilization order is already written out.²
The policy is to Win the war first,
And work out the Meaning later …³
The ones who call the shots
Are not among the Dead and Lame—
And on each end of the rifle we’re the Same.⁴
What others view as a policy decision, we see
Clearly as the Murder of innocent people.⁵
War is no mere discord of flags—
But an Infection of the common Sky!⁶
Little generals & painted gods raise armies—
To waste lives & goods, and spoil the Sacred Earth.⁷
Every gun that’s made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
Signifies in a final sense: theft from those who are
Hungry and not fed, cold and not clothed.⁸
Is not life Miserable enough,
Comes not Death soon enough—
Without resort to the hideous enginery of War?⁹
War Wastes what it Wins—
Ends Worse than it begins.¹⁰
¹ Wilfred Owen, Strange Meeting
² Bertolt Brecht tr. original, A German War Primer
³ Muriel Rukeyser, The Life of Poetry
⁴ John McCutcheon, Christmas in the Trenches
⁵ 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Not in Our Names
⁶ Robert Graves, Recalling War
⁷ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Birthday of the World
⁸ Dwight Eisenhower, The Chance for Peace
⁹ Horace Greerly, quoted in A People’s History of the United States
¹⁰ Ebenezer Elliott, War