War is the Best Con Ever Designed

War is the best con ever designed
drafted by the only shyster we can’t bribe,
a contract Death drafted that we cosigned.

At every recruiting station a warning sign
should be posted in letters that dare inscribe
WAR IS THE BEST CON EVER DESIGNED.

War flourishes with a conscience resigned
to artillery fire, instead of a poet’s clever gibe.
A contract Death drafted that we cosigned

binds our Holy Lands to pay in kind
with the dead of whoever’s ancient tribe.
War is the best con ever designed,

it works best when politicians are inclined
to rouse a public with vengeful diatribe.
A contract Death drafted that we cosigned

specifies each bomb dropped and footpath mined:
fine print Death’s attorney took pains to transcribe.
War is the best con ever designed,
a contract Death drafted that we cosigned.

James Huneycutt is an ex-offender who runs a successful plumbing company in Virginia. He scribbles on the backs of invoices, estimates and parts lists. These scraps accumulate on the dashboard of his plumbing van until he can no longer make out the highway’s center line. Educated in Virginia, Morocco, and Boulder, Colorado, and the Prince George’s County Lockup, his recent publications include a foreword to Edgar Tiffany’s “Audie Murphy in Saigon,” the poem “An Ode to Reb” in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and the essay “Writer’s Block Cure,” in Sterling Clack, Clack.

Image: Rafael Vargas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons