“Target”

  

c. 2026 Rod Ice

All rights reserved
(1-26)

 

Strike the target, send in our drones

Install a Pharoah on his throne

Nation-build, it worked before

Aircraft carriers go to war

The Middle East, a tinder box

World affairs, a school of hard knocks

Lesson learned and then forgotten

We inherit wages, harshly begotten

The hour is late, so we lament

Having witnessed the fall of a government

Without the care of predisposition

We might have influenced the crowd condition

Yearning for a free exercise

Of rights and rules, under a glistening guise

Of a shepherd’s staff, leading the way

With the hope of allies on a better day

Whatever case we made was right

It is our place, our Yankee birthright

To choose and chase as we see fit

Until our next leap into the pit

Our intentions have always tilted well

With no indication of an earthly hell

As the righteous rise of wrath is spooled

Consequences kick like an angry mule

The stable stalled with rotted grass

And eventually, soldiers leave, en masse

Heads turn and shake, with damning doubt

And we wonder what it was all about

A plan of action at the ready

A mission sent out, slow and steady

What is right does not appeal

The can is crushed, under a bootheel

Pluck the jefe from his lair

Leaving the cupboards, cold and bare

Fly on wings that mechanics made

Soldiers pumped-up on Gatorade

Swinging fists and rifle butts

High-tech implements that dig a rut

If our leaders are smart and strong

We’ll leave with more than a victor’s song

Perhaps the gold of an oil tycoon

Or the finest wool, spun on a loom

Whatever prize, that is deserved

A bounty for those that bravely served

Skyward sparks light up the dark

Champions cheer in the public park

A protest spat in the background shot

Cameras capture this conflict, hot

Who is offended by a show of force?

Only the fools who have been divorced

From logic and the line of thinking

Given with a one-eyed winking

It is too much for me to grasp

So, I turn instead to my drinking glass

The television screen is bright

That electronic marvel stays up all night

I sit and watch, and learn in time

As pickled pundits swim in their brine

The jar, half-empty, this is declared

At least the nation was rightly spared

No more fulfillment of a curse

No better maybe, but not any worse

That Roulette spin is a privilege, prized

As prime ministers and presidents roll their eyes

Those lowly of birth, such as myself

Must sit and wait, before restored to health

Yet that duty is not a burden to bear

If I switch off the set, it cancels my cares

A blank screen is all I see

It eases this mood of urgency

A Judas kiss betrays the host

Of faded dreams and silent ghosts