REILLUSIONMENT

The War to End All Wars was fought
As if they really meant it;
In retrospect, the veterans thought
Their leaders all demented.

The Good War was a special case,
The planet on the line:
Toward which technology and race
Would Destiny incline?

The Cold War tacked a special cost
On ideology:
If one side lost, then both sides lost;
To be, or not to be?

Our chieftains call our present foes
An "existential threat."
The lessons from our former woes?
We haven't learned one yet.
-DAN CAMPION

(Published in LIGHT,
a quarterly of light verse
Fall-Winter 2008)