For the Troops

Just where would
you like me to support you?

What if I held and patted your hand,
and told you some ghastly official lies,
about planes that can take down giant skyscrapers
merely by flying into them,
or about black muslim snipers
gone conspicuously haywire,
or anthrax attacks reeking of fake melodrama and
military-grade chemicals?
I will tell you outlandish myths
about the evil of foreigners
that would offend the reason
of a half-educated toddler,
and then order you to go kill such toddlers
in support of my myths.

What if I held your head and poured the boiling sap
of blind patriotism into your ringing ears,
with an assurance that the people
you killed yesterday are fanatics and savages,
and those you’ll kill tomorrow
would have stoned your middle-school daughter to death
for enjoying pop music or
the casual fellatio she has engaged in for some time now?

Do you need the support of my foot in your ass,
for going on a
mercenary mission to
lands where you do not belong and are sure to
mess things up to the
point where your host will wish upon you painful and
lingering death?
You didn’t know they had swords still,
in Mesopotamia. Swords for decapitation.
All that shit the army told you about them being
primitive tribesmen somehow
didn’t include mention of their ferocity
in settling scores and re-establishing manhood
under occupation.
when the thoughtless are made headless,
that is symmetrical warfare.

Yes, I think you do need me to lean on,
now that one of your legs has been
exchanged in Ramadi for a fine
steel and polymer get-up,
now that you have had time to brush up
on your history,
and are feeling ill.
Hoo-ah Hooey!