Another Anti-war Poem (you don't have to see the visuals to know what slaughter looks like)

Graphology Superscription 117: administrations

Without viewing

the visuals, you’ll 

likely know 

what killing 

looks like.

And you’ll know

that Biden’s call

for Ukraine to ‘revise’

its recruitment age 

from twenty-five

to eighteen

is an ‘anthem

for doomed youth’

played out by proxy.

An act of creative 

thinking.

And you’ll reason

that increased weapons-flow

is the twist in a presidential 

pardon that serves

next generations.

You are forgiven...

and you... and you.

Thanks very much

(from afar)

for your sacrifice.

Processing, you’ll second-guess

that a new administration

will pursue pet conflicts

under chosen conditions. 

A fresh set of eyes

even if you’re not looking.

Rerouting front lines

for fresher conscripts.

Different audio-visual

frames of reference.

Alternative newsfeeds.

You might re-say that wars

escape their makers,

their sustainers, and their

apologists. That wars ultimately

feed themselves. You might

tick off the days on the calendar

with or without hope.

You might also say that wars 

ache with clichés for slaughter 

even if you don’t view 

that latest footage from x

or y co-ordinates — sicut dixit. 

Edited... or even up-

loaded raw 

and immediate.

And other such

affronts.

And having said all this,

if you do say all of this, 

you might conjecture 

over potential

‘peace talks’; 

memorials;

re-plantings

of torn fields;

post-war 

economies,

strategic

realignments.

Allegiances.

And that hardly

mellifluous saying:

‘adult time for adult crime’.

John Kinsella