There Are No Winnable Wars
 
 
The armor plate. The weapons of destruction:
projectile, gas, biology. The trench,
the barbican. The contour of the land,
the conscript army and the air support.
The calculus of death. The mutual
grasp of what escalation is. The food
supplies, the sweep of influenza, the
limbs missing, the collateral, the small,
the weak, the infirm on the roads, the dead
and maimed, the blasted trees, the mines, the smell
that lingers in the nostrils, the awards,
the kill or be killed, the map with its lines,
the tents, the mess, the boots and socks. The green
world growing. Water running. Sky above.


John Claiborne Isbell

If you have any thoughts about this poem, John Claiborne Isbell  would be pleased to hear them