I am too poor to go to war\u2026
\nLet me tell you the score\u2026
\nYour last war left my crops asu
\nNow my children hunger\u2026
\nYou planted mines in my field\u2026
\nNothing but misery, they yield\u2026
\nYour current battle destroyed my cattle,
\nOnly a bull and a cow\u2026
\nBecause I am not a Muslim or a Jew, you allow me a sow\u2026
\nYour soldiers gloat that they got my goat\u2026
\nWas it the marines who stole my sheep\u2026
\nFrom you, many sorrows I do reap\u2026
\nWith preemptive interventions and multiple inventions,
\nYou tell me of good intentions?
\nWho is supposed to explain the detentions?
\nWith great math, the war\u2019s cost you do extend,
\nWith your latest military budget, me, you do offend\u2026
\nWho is to pay for road mending, for health care spending\u2026
\nFor student tending, for water vending\u2026
\nQuartermaster, halfmaster, fullmaster\u2026
\nWho would envision worse provision\u2026
\nDomestically, you insist on standard testing, with efficiency\u2026
\nYou teach war games with proficiency\u2026
\nWould that we could help children with educational sufficiency\u2026
\nWhile far away, thousands of troops are quickly deployed\u2026
\nIn iraq, bosnia, haiti, siam or thailand\u2026
\nAt home, the streets fill with the unemployed\u2026
\nI do believe\u2026 I am too poor to go to war\u2026
\nI am out of step, I am inept\u2026 I am too poor\u2026
\nYes, I am rich with other stuff\u2026 with Thomas Mann, I have a lease\u2026
\n\u201cWar is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.\u201d
\nWould I, would you, would we, if we could, afford peace\u2026
\nI am too poor to go to war\u2026
\n________________________<\/p>\n
Dr. Noel David Burleson is an international civil servant focusing on peace, ecology, girls education, water, population and development. As retired UNESCO advisor to UNICEF, he writes with his duonym \u201cdavid inkey\u201d. After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in Social Relations\/Social Anthropology, he served as a consultant on family planning and population issues to the International Labor Organization, World Health Organization, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. He is the self-appointed president of Antarctica University and was three times named (by colleagues) the UN Philosopher. Until the UN finds time to name its own Poet Laureate, he assumes this role, as well. <\/em>UNpoet@aol.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am too poor to go to war\u2026
\n Let me tell you the score\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}