Forty years ago I was one of the youths
who grew up in a small town surrounded
by military bases. I lived with my family
who lived in the shadows of the cold war,
and the long memory of World War Two.
Prompted by accurate depictions of it on television
I feared nuclear destruction with a vehemence
enough to take to the streets with friends, to protest.
I was too late to protest against World War Two.
Nowadays when I listen to the military madness
that my radio calls 'The News' it is no longer
Soviet Russia vs America that makes me squirm.
It is Israel vs it's many opponents, all of whom
have too little diplomatic good will between them
to resist the slide into a multisided armed conflict.
Any war might be the prelude to World War Three,
a war I now do not get worked up about, but see
as going on well above my head, and pay grade.
I listen to try to get past how what I listen to
is something I can do nothing to stop, and those
who are talking have no recipe to make it stop either.
But still I listen until I notice I'm being inattentive,
then I turn the radio off, Emotionally and physically,
I am too far away from what they are discussing to care.
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