I am too poor to go to war.

  I am too poor to go to war.
      Let me tell you the score.

  Your last war left my crops asunder,
      Now my children all hunger.
      You planted your mines in my field.
      Genetically modified? they nothing but
           misery yield.

  Your current battle has destroyed  my cattle,
      A bull, a cow, a goat and two sheep.
  From you, only sorrows i seem to reap.

With many inventions and preemptive interventions,

     You tell me of good intentions?

  Who is supposed to explain those detentions?
  Your future military budget leaves scant funding,

      For road mending, for health care spending,
      For student tending, for water vending.

You insist on standard testing, with political efficiency,
  And you teach war games with great proficiency.
  Would that we could help children with educational sufficiency.

  While far away, thousands of troops are deployed.
      In iraq, bosnia, haiti, siam or thailand.
  While, at home, the streets fill, with the unemployed.

  I do believe.i am too poor to go to war.
  Yet, with Thomas Mann, i am rich enuf to know.
      "War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."
  Would you, would i, would we, if we could, afford peace.

    I am too poor to go to war.

                      david inkey, 12/15/03