He settles deep where the leather sighs,
And wipes the moisture from his eyes.
He reads of the Somme, the mud, the wire,
And feels a genuine, holy fire.
"How tragic,"
he whispers, the lamp burning low,
"That men were so brutal, so long ago."
He closes the book with a reverent hand,
A guardian of peace in a civilized land.
He pours a glass of a deep, vintage red,
And toasts to the memory of the innocent dead.
"Never again,"
is the oath that he takes,
While his heart, for the history, softly breaks.
Then the screen flickers on, and the news tickers run,
A report on the rebels, the bomb, and the gun.
But this—he reflects, with a furrowed brow—
Is a complex matter, occurring right now.
It isn't the same as the history books;
It requires deep thought, and sharper looks.
He uncaps his pen—a Montblanc, refined—
To navigate the corners of his brilliant mind.
"We must be pragmatic,"
he writes in his draft,
Avoiding the emotion, the populist craft.
"The strikes are precise,"
he notes with a nod,
"To spare the civilians, while striking the rod."
He does not see dust, or a child on the floor,
He sees a "strategic necessity" of war.
He sips at his wine, savoring the oak,
And writes of "containment" and "lifting the yoke."
He feels a heavy burden, a weight on his soul,
For being the one who must keep control.
The room is so quiet, the air is so still,
As he drafts the approval for the order to kill.
The Colonel kills with a blade and a shout;
But this gentleman kills with a lingering doubt.
He will just adjust his tie, and draft the text
That mourns the current war,
Once he's launched the next.
He is the gentleman who clips the wing,
Then studies why the bird won't sing.
Then turns off the lamp, climbs into his bed,
With a clear, clean conscience, and a quiet head.
And were he to read this, he'd surely scoff
At the simplistic structure, the meter "off."
But I am the architect of the evocative line,
Where revolutionary nuance and free verse entwine.
I authored the standard of the untethered art,
Where shattering the rhythm cuts straight to the heart.
Yet I fed you this nursery, this predictable chime,
Suffocating the truth in a singsong rhyme.
I gave you the childish cadence you hate,
Winding the music box, setting the bait.
I kept the beat steady, I stayed in the lines,
Through all your hypocrisies and strategic designs,
Just so I could snap the spine of the meter right here.
To strip away the poetry entirely,
Look you dead in your pragmatic eyes,
And say:
Fuck you