A Simple Deadly Word

War! So easy to say the word
That’s so futile and absurd,
Three letters have the power
To make the world so sour.

Chanting liberty and freedom,
It calls to us like a beacon
And in a very special way
Molds our souls like clay.

There’s nothing more perfidious,
More enticing, more insidious,
Making one simply forget
To search for the real threat.

We took all too many lives
With powder, steel and knives,
In the name of God and liberation
We head to our own damnation.

Our weapons do the talking,
Further down we keep walking
Along a bloody death track
From which few ever come back.

No one wants to be a hero,
To suffer in a gruesome limbo
Where every step can be your last
And the body can shatter like glass.

Generations paid tribute in blood
That was lost in the timeless mud
But from it sprouted our present
Sung with the notes of their lament.

The years should give us wisdom;
There are other ways to gain freedom,
To bury weapons and hate in the past
And make nations shake hands at last.

Teutorix Maxen
October 19, 2015