POEM: Commander-in-chief

Just
Say it
Three times fast
He/she/it
Commander-in-chief
Presiding over
No unwounded soldiers
As sum kind
Of used scars salesman
Master of what we auto do
Protector of awe we car about
As if
Some amored vehicle
Good grief
Shock and all
Giving won’s right harm
As pumped up append age
And sport scar
As buy gone youth
The fodder of proclamations
And canonizing
A bout
How offal sorry
Know longer jumping
Through hooplas
Green to pain for grave deeds
As herein now
Head stoned
Or even
Missing inaction
That piece that passes
Awe
Under standing
An immeasurable ruler
Of the highest
Nay heavenly
Rank

Owed to the Commander-in-chief. He/she/it. Weather a man, a woman, or merely a cog in the office of the President, war is hell. All else is propaganda. The commander-in-chief serves as the high priest of nationalism, offering up blood and idol words, mocking the sovereign goodness of God. Selling evil as necessary is affront enough to a loving God. Overselling military service as a sacred duty cements our feat in an ocean of hurt. Trust in the power of war, military might, is the fodder of much of the Old Testament. This is nothing new. However, the power and workings of God are ever anew. There was a time when people believed that he earth was flat. There was a time when people believed that monarchy, the rule of royal elites, was an absolute and unchangeable reality. There was a time when people accepted slavery as a normal, desirable, even God-sanctioned, fact of life. God created us free. Free to do evil. Free to do good. We don’t need to kill to be free. We may need to kill to mold creation into our image, of a world free for those closest to us, and a world of shit for those far from us. We worship a god chopped up into little peaces, and we have the body parts to prove it. May we cast off the vicious cycles of violence and war, and dedicate, even sacrifice, our lives for a world where one side fits all. This is awe that God asks of US. Make it sow.