I’ll have to change my mind

I’ll have to change my mind on war, I need to take a break
from structured thought; there’s more to peace; it dictates
a longer oar to keep the calm than takes to make a little war.
Our history as a people is a theatre of strife and where
we celebrate the life of shielded freedoms, there the
rot begins; whose freedoms do we celebrate? The right
to go to war? What makes it right? It’s only right, of course, to win.
We say we celebrate departed mates who sacrificed
their lives so we are free from tyranny, at least
we say they died but would their sacrifice suffice
without the win? I doubt we ever think outside the square
of regent reason, it would be treason should we offer
views that could accuse our masters of collusion.
It’s no illusion that the aftermath of war is ugly truth,
a truth we hide in epithets and sobriquets
and bodies on the battlefield we left to pay some foreign
debt. And yet we talk of glory. Lest we forget!
© I.D. Carswell