Weapons replace our Tongues:
We learn to Speak through them²
We Refine the Means of Destruction:
Abstract Science almost Visibly Shining³
Why such Daily cast of Brazen Cannon –
And Foreign Mart for Implements of War?⁴
The Dead aren’t Mourned by human song, but by
A Cacophony of new Technologies & Armaments⁵
All who Draw the Sword shall Perish by the Sword⁶
Powerful new human Weapons shall finally end
In Profound & Scandalous Desolations of Spirit⁷
A Bayonet’s Contrition is Nothing to the Dead⁸
The more who own Lethal Weapons,
The More Darkened is the Country⁹
Weapons Beat against each
Other – and the People Fall¹⁰
¹ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Matter of Seggri
² Jim Jarmusch, Dead Man
³ Denise Levertov, The Certainty
⁴ William Shakespeare, Hamlet
⁵ Carolyn Forché, Introduction to Against Forgetting
⁶ Matthew 26:52
⁷ Hermann Hesse tr. Damion Searls, Demian
⁸ Emily Dickinson, My Triumph Lasted
⁹ Lao Tzu tr. Charles Muller, Tao Te Ching 57
¹⁰ Homer tr. Samuel Butler, The Iliad