The Cravings Of The Beast

Anti-war

In kindergarten class I learned

We’ve always been the very best

We saved the world in the last great war

With just a little help from the rest

It was junior high school where I learned

The Korean war was great

We saved democracy it seems

From a  soul-crushing communist fate

I think college was the place I learned

We were needed in Vietnam

Though some of us were starting to see

The politicians were setting up a scam

Through my 30s, 40s, and 50s

We kept running from war to war

Sometimes it was to save folks from themselves

Sometimes to even a score

We’ve been warring in places like Syria

And the hills of  Afghanistan

Killing villagers in Libya, in Yemen,

For reasons I’ll never  understand



We’ve lost five thousand

of our very own folk

On the dusty deserts of Iraq

We’ve been killing nice people

in so many places

The dove has been devoured by the hawk

If you think we are going

to find peace again

You’ve been smoking

some polluted weed

America is addicted to war

It’s something we

just seem to need

There has never been

a shortage of reasons

To return to the war-making feast

We have greed, revenge,

religion-borne fears

To feed the cravings of the beast