The Uses of War

Heavy as fate itself is war.
Who can divine its meaning?
Once you enter therein,
You will never come back,
For how can one recover from a myth?
In battle’s procedures, the gods are most visible,
Directing action and fortune,
Fashioning destinies, inexplicably.
You may muster all the facts
And marshal every science,
But no answer will you find
Except in love.

A million bushels of men and horses
Were harvested from the battlefields
Of the Napoleonic Wars,
Shipped to England and ground into bone meal
By factory workers,
Toiling to feed their families.

Name the enemy
And let violence begin.
Think of General Patton,
Gloomy as his war was ending,
-What would he do now?
Until he discovered,
With joy and relief,
A new and worthy foe,
Savages from the East.

Picture of the Week
In Life Magazine, May 1944:
An attractive young woman
Writing a thank-you letter
To her boyfriend in the Navy,
Smiling at his beautiful gift,
Set upon her desk:
The skull of a Japanese soldier,
Autographed by him
And his pals.

So much is buried in the earth
To make it vengeful;
The god of the chariot
Also drives the plough.
Splendour of another order
Flourishes in the horror;
Those who perish
Also exult.

“The Battle of Lookout Mountain,”
Said General Grant,
“Was no battle at all,
But poetry, all poetry”.
Like the blonde merkins
Italian prostitutes wore
For their Yankee soldier boys
In the Great War.