Waste Not, Want Not

And was our butchery so mean and thin
As not to satisfy your appetite?
Must you still put the patriotic bite
On those who gave their substance for your win -
Lives bitten short, our epitaph gulped in,
Swallowed to feed a politicians' rite:
Two minutes' toothless tribute to our plight
Before resuming that triumphal grin?

Did shrapnel chew our flesh and mud consume
Our bones - for this? Fed on our blood and breath,
Are all you brave of mouth who still presume
To laud our lives and huckster with our death
Not sated? Must we serve to feed, as well,
Fat maggots with fake red in their lapel?

Victor Britton