They tried to warn us
     "An upcoming TV movie depicting the
     aftermath of a nuclear war may
     cause anxiety and aggression among
     children who see it."

Little did they know
     how little impact would result
     from depicting the wasting
     of an American city.

After all
     we were raised with the napalming of
     little children
     on dinner-time TV news.

Clergy have tried portraying hell
     in living color for so long
     no one notices them either.

Armageddon is so common
     as to be uninteresting.

A volcano can get our attention...
     and maybe an earthquake
     but a nuclear mistake?

We are even dulled to our slow
     stripping and devastation
     of earth's foliage.

"The earth mourns and withers,
the world languishes and writhes;
the heavens languish together with the earth.
The earth lies polluted under its
inhabitants; for they have
transgressed the laws, violated the statutes...
Therefore a curse devours the earth
and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are
scorched, and few men are left."

(Isaiah 24:4 - 6)

My family, my race,
My country, my place,
My commerce, my trade,
My honor, self-made,
My power, my right,
My virtue – We'll fight!

Mad mortals thus saying
Fall fiercely to fighting,
Now boasting, now praying,
Now cursing, back biting.

O method futile,
So childish, so brutal;
In fighting for honor
Ourselves we dishonor,
In fighting our brothers
For land and its borders,
For titles or powers
We blast life's best flowers.

We tear our own heart-strings,
We shatter life's best things,
For all of this earth land
Is God's land and our land,
And all of its clansmen
Are God's men and our men,
Each man is a brother
And should honor the other.

In slaying a brother,
Ourselves, and no other,
Are those most defeated –
Eternally cheated.

Arthur D. Weage