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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaWvbJSjAko&ab_channel=Fats-4-Ever

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War-time music …

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Everyone is an expert now, here,

On military ventures, geo-politics,

Socio-culture and economics -

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Compensating, as people do, 

For a lack of participation

With sudden outbursts of opinionation,

Outrage, exhibitions of mimed courage,

Valor and proclamation.

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And the women all look nervous,

And the men 

With a woman’s proclivities, join them, 

And the teenaged boys puff out their chests,

Buy serrated 

K-bars, practice on trees,

And their fathers argue across the dinner table,

Overnight professors, proving theses on ‘Breaking News.’

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And all the while, as they have been 

For the last eight years, for as long as we’ve been here,

For ever, 

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Innocent people die terribly; 

Decisions of consequence are made

Far from our dining rooms, from our televisions sets,

Our protest lines, 

Our easily dismissible inflation.

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And we all rebound off of one another -

Stray bullets, ourselves, trying to make sense of it all -

And we knock and rumble

And make scared, loud noises …

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Convincing ourselves that we understand

Enough, at least, to assign the appropriate blame …

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Like the judges before distraught children, 

Being asked arbitrary questions

Of custody, of responsibility and of preference.

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And all the while, innocent people continue to die terribly

And the decisions of consequence are made

Far from where our ears, our voices,

Can affect them.

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And it sounds out,

Our populist-consumerist, 

Western wartime-music … 

Echoing with redundancy, 

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Far, across the open Atlantic.

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