Upon The War In Iraq

Upon the War in Iraq

The time has come for thunderbolts
Of steel from the sky.
It is now right that murderers
Instead of children, die.
They have forged chains and thumbscrews while
We have made pleas and threats.
The portraits of the killer smile
But he must pay his debts.

A mountainside is split in two,
His coward legions fall.
His shackled cities fade from view
Beneath a smoky pall.
Armored treads sound in the street,
The tanks are not his own.
He has bid many to be slain.
He’ll face his death alone.

Cineas told Pyrrhus that
“Rome has a thousand heads.”
And Rome was a republic, strong
After that king was dead.
The tyrant butchers live in fear
And we go on and on.
A century shall find us here
And every tyrant gone.

Our carriers loom off his coast.
Our bombers fill his skies.
And brave, skilled men with stealthy tread
Prepare his grim surprise.
Grant, and Sherman, Patton, Greene
Have taught us to make war.
We now pick up their legacy
And free the world once more.

By Mr. Rice