The Stupidity of War

 by Brett Rutherford

Adapted from Victor Hugo, l'Annee Terrible, "January 1871"

III

War works at her loom, an eyeless and imbecile
Penelope, humming a lullaby of chaos
from the oscillation of unbeing,
Oh War, attending to the clash of squadrons,
ears full of the furious noise of the bugles.
Thirsty, she reaches for a tankard of blood,
and, fierce and withered, would make others drink.

She is draped in a cloud of deformed destinies,
     from the sight of which God flees.
The light that illumines her is no light at all
     but something blacker than night
          that casts inverted beams that singe.

Immense madwoman, a whirligig of wind
     and a lightning-bolt armory,
what use are you, giantess,
     what use, you being of smoke and fire
if all that collapses before you
only rebuilds another evil,
if yours is the unthinking
     and automatic murder of beasts,
the way the wolves descend upon sheep,
if you, slouching at ease in the shadows,
defeat one Emperor only to make another!