Dave lost his head
On the edge of barbarism
Shariq found his blown to pieces
On the edge of civilization
Savage swordplay and droning videogames
Medieval meets modern
Death metes equally
To those dispensing
Aid to enemas
And bad abettors
In gruesome gambols
Where the hows always wins
And the whys are confounded
Weather fatally sored
In phase too phase war fair
Or insights of a video chimera
A cross continence
Either weigh
Each respectively
Given the finger
In a speak easy of honor
Wear suits are sir rated
And buttons pressed
United in death
Lilliputian tears fill our see
Crescendoing whoppers bound by feared flees
Fooly contempt plated
Wear wee be headed
A long the heart of wore
Our ultimate objective
Hour final destiny
Only too find ourselves
Naked to death
And life
All the amour
Of which elicit
This anti-war poem was inspired by recent beheadings, which seem to have been very effective in eliciting a spirit of war in Team America. Such barbaric acts by our enemies strike at the heart of our civilized sensibilities, much more than our regular less-than-civilized killings of the occasional enemy and more frequent nearby noncombatants. U.S. wars have droned on for years. This has been mostly below the radar of U.S. public awareness and above retaliation by its non-American and un-American victims. There is little doubt that when theatrical barbarism and video-game inspired drone warfare meet that war will be the big winner. The losers will be uncountable. The few winners will be unaccountable.
This poem’s title is a take off on the infamous treatise, The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. Wearing your heart is a dangerous thing when the drums of war are beating. No doubt, the world can be a scary and dangerous place. Nonetheless, I am convinced that humanity is in much greater danger of losing its heart than losing its head. Each of us will be dead some day. The more important question will be whether our hearts are intact, not our heads.
