by Robert M. Chute
Can a war be just the right size?
You need intermediate numbers:
X killed, Y wounded ( —Z enemies).
Not too many in any one town
so every casualty will have their
time on TV, their newspaper story,
not just a name on a boring list
down the side of a page. Family, friends,
grieve of course, others imagine
combat's hot adrenalin rush or
celebrate vicarious virtual sacrifice.
Baseball scores scroll the screen
while we watch the latest reality show:
this war that is just the right size.
Robert M. Chute’s book from JustWrite Books, Reading Nature, poetry based on scientific articles, is available from Amazon or Barnes and Noble. He is presently preparing a new chapbook, Settling In, about the settling of what is now Windham, Maine, where his ancestor, Thomas Chute, was the first settler in 1738.