The Drums - Upfront: news and opinion from independent minds - Poem

Humanist, Nov-Dec, 2002 by David Krieger

THE DRUMS

   They're beating on the drums again,
   the drums, the drums.
   They're calling out the young men again,
   young men, young men.
   They're training them to kill again,
   with knives and guns,
   with tanks and bombs.
   They're sending them away again,
   across the ocean
   by ship, by plane.
   They're acting up at home again,
   the mothers, the mothers.
   They don't want their sons to go again
   to die, to die.
   And now they're coming home again
   in caskets wrapped in flags
   with shrapnel in their backs,
   with heroin in their veins.
   And now they're coming home again
   with snickers on their lips,
   with medals on their chests.
   They're blowing on the bugles now.
   They're beating on the drums,
   the drums, the drums.

   -1971

This poem was written more than thirty years ago, during another war, but it seems sadly appropriate once more.