I've got it in my head to start a war.
But I think my war could be a good war, a just war.
A war of medals and brotherhood and good-natured cussing and yes trench-foot and shrapnel and tears but the trench-foot of dark infant glory, the shrapnel of stately limps, the tears of chaste nationalistic Teresas, of breath-taking panoramic landscape cast of thousands.
In my war all troop formations will conform to the Golden Ratio.
In my war all bombing targets will be chosen by the I Ching.
In my war the enemy comes running straight for you naked except for war & skewers himself on your bayonet & no blood just small clear rivers of war & his god will carry his soul straight to heaven & your god will make sure you never die in a war.
(In my war one thousand twenty-four Myrmidons stack responsibility papers in deep garbage cans of war.)
This isn't a meditation, this is an alibi.
Oh and there will be many alerts. I will paint war in the most beautiful colors. My war will look good in the living room or den.
A soldier long at war in my war will clutch a small bird a short distance from a village where a boy on a rooftop will be mistaken for the devil and shot. The bird will be warm in his hand—he will let it go.
& there will be spirited and beautiful movements against my war. The youth will spend their youth on war. Large war signs proclaiming NO WAR. Kissing, drinking each other's tears, they will come of age in a time of war.
I will make war impossible. I will make war safe & navigable. I will seek to make war more transparent. I will constantly seek greater transparency in my war.
My war will destroy anything approaching within 200 miles.
In my war all snipers will be certified judges and will grant all targets a speedy trial before shooting them in the head.
In my war everyone had a way out.
Every outpost will be supplied with an authentic Tibetan monk who will be given the necessary firepower to reliably enforce reincarnation on the ground.
In my war no one asks and no one tells.
And just as you are crawling out of the reach of the mortar fire you will come upon a mound of angelfaced young bodies stabbed to death with the sharpened ends of rose stems. And the roses will continue to bloom!
Kiss everyone you've wanted to kiss. It's time for war.
I'm beating a drum!
I'm getting some action!
I'm driving out all Poisons!
—R.M. O'Brien
R.M. O'BRIEN was born in Oswego, New York in 1983. He was awarded a BA in Liberal Studies from Purchase College only after he agreed to pay $50 to be registered in a "dummy" class. If he is known at all, it is probably as the principal songwriter and singer for Nuclear Power Pants. To date, O'Brien has self-published a small handful of poetic tracts which he leaves around wherever, and he curates the monthly reading series WORMS in Baltimore, Maryland, where he lives with a man, a woman, and a dog.
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