Sensible at Last
written by: Stuart K Watson
Tired of senseless war, fatigued by millenia
of bashing and poking and macing and shafting
with arrows, before a reign of shrapnel,
bullets raining sideways through the clouds
let loose from the mouths of smokers
cast in iron, done with all of that,
a child too young for innate wisdom
to have been eroded by the ravages of age,
a tiny, happy, innocent-of-guile child
brought overclouding pompous adult rhetoric
to grave by asking “Why not a sensible war?”
Discussions centered on what and where,
feather dusters or sofa cushions, perhaps
duels with plain canned air, loud sound
enough to get combatants holding hands
against their ears. Where peace negotiators
found them, sitting silent, on their rears.
In time the soldiers tired of having naught
to kill, and marched lockstep across their dale
and over one, then two, then one last hill
so far behind the enemy lines, all any at the rear
could hear was fusillades from cracked behinds.
- Sensible at Last - July 17, 2026
