Blood by Larry Woods Zoeller

It's just a liquid, pumped through the body in a complicated duct system directed by wiring attached to a central processor. Not much fortification. Just soft flesh with a bone plate covering the critical pump and processor. Easily breeched. Yet we consistently put bodies in harm's way as though they were somehow invulnerable; somehow immortal. We have justification: Heroics, sacrifice, nationalism religion, justice, unity. Never are greed or power mentioned by those who do the sending. They are the loudest justifiers who stay at home and send other vital bodies to be broken and destroyed. We say freedom must be nurtured with blood. We say we must save the world. We say we must protect the weak. Yet tyranny reigns by many names, Including freedom and democracy. The world is saved for the rich and strong. We are awash in the blood of the weak, and only those who have been there, whose blood has run from their wounds unto death know the truth. Our billions go to create armament to protect vulnerable flesh while more billions go to invent ever more lethal weapons to pierce the defenses. While those who live where we go to fight, those whom we claim we are defending, have no armament, no weapons, no clothes, no life. Only blood flowing from wounds that will not be stopped. Until we stop. ~ Copyright © 2006 - Larry Woods Zoeller Published: 10/12/06   ·  Author's Page   ·  Next Poem