Peacenik Prose

Peacenik Prose

Anti-war activities across the world today:
London, Berlin, Belgium, France,
Patriotic peaceniks, in our streets dance,
Gray-hairs leading the way,
In songs, and fraternalism,
Throughout this politically aware day.

There's a significant knowing of unity,
About the way the world ought to be,
Singing just like before. . .
“All we are saying is give peace a chance!”

Like “Zam and Zor”*
Settling some ancient score,
What if "they” gave a war,
And nobody came?

Volunteer military
Defend our way of life.
We place, on their backs, our fears
And our strife, as they risk their lives,
Twenty-eight hours by plane from here.

(By flight, it's twenty hours
To Vietnam from here.
It's forty years back in history
To Vietnam from here.
Are we going where we've already been,
Homework incomplete, lesson not turned in?)

What is travel time anyway,
When events are broadcast clear,
In real time, today?
What is history anyway,
And who should have a say?

Kant of the Age of Philosophers
States he could bravely boast
An innocence of conscience,
By answering, "Yes, I would go myself,"
But it's not the way, today, of most.

That is the quest of the mental test
Of an active philosopher of life,
While others, making moral decisions
For others:
Left or right, left and right,
Pondering military conquests,
Slandering the name of God.

But who dares to philosophize
When apathy is the rule.
Now in overlapping generations:
“Don’t get involved,”
Versus
"Don't give a damn,"
It is the ultimate duel.


And so the questions,
"Would YOU go, to do it yourself?
Would you leave your kids, your job,
Your wife,
And your life?"

The call goes out to all, ages 18-65,

"Would YOU give it all up
To preserve what freedom means
In the US of A,
Our way,
Today, to be alive, and okay?"

God bless our troops, I pray,
Bring the soldiers home today.




*"Zor and Zam" by B & J Chadwick, 1968, Colgems Records
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