Thomas McGrath

A Momentary Loss of Belief in the Wisdom
of the Common People and a Curse on the
Bastards Who Own and Operate Them

"War is the continuation of policy by other means."
So said Von Clausewitz.

But war is also
The continuation of false consciousness
And falsified policy and politics
And greed masked as bourgeois generosity
By the falsified desires of American imperialism
By presidents wedded to cowboys and missiles
By chauvinist beer salesmen peddling the stars and stripes by
 the six-pack
By the trained psychopathic liars of the State Department
By simple-minded sods in all fifty states
By the born-simple clergy and suckers of religion
By the bearded dons and Ph.D. dumdums of Academia
By painters selling third-hand Da Da at fancy prices
By poets who have forgot their songs in their gilded cages
By farmers sold out and put on the road and still finding their enemy
 in Nicaragua or El Salvador
By workers given their walking papers for life and their heads still so
 unscrewed they think the enemy is Russia or Communism
By housewives pissing their pants and dreaming of Red Terror
Or hijackers invading Podunk

By other means.
Politics is the continuation of war by other means.

And now, you celebrated American jackasses:
You still want war?
Go let a hole in the head shed light on your darkling brain--
Remember Vietnam?

Go and be damned!
But don't count on me for nothing you righteous
 stupid sons of bitches!

--Thomas McGrath

fr. Death Song

[Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 1991]

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