The following views expressed
Do not necessarily reflect
Those of the prevailing order
Who prostrate to their naked kings
Tailor the seams of funeral shrouds on foreign shores
But shed no tears for the dead
The dead of the endless list of informal wars
The justification for

Will be spelled out for me
Coming soon to a screen near me
Near you

I'm feeling less hopeful
And so much less human
As my days are reduced to
Little more than
Settling for revenge
And wondering whatever happened to the kid that pledged

Chalk it up to an overdeveloped sense of unbridled vengeance
Somebody fed me too much New Hope for breakfast

'Cause as the empire preemptively strikes back
Again, and the voice of Luke's father
Baritones that this is CNN
Recall Arab kids slaughtered
Reduced to sand niggers and ragheads
And now I'm expected to mourn
Dead Americans?
The executioner's willing citizens
I'm so sorry, and I'm trying to think it through
But when the chickens came home to roost

And hand-delivered matching funeral urns
To the bully that never learns
I could have sworn I heard a chorus rise and fall
Wishing them so many more unhappy returns

But in every war waged
Only kings emerge unscathed