World Order Poem by Robert Ronnow

Financiers feel superior to farmers
and pundits have it over poets.
All to the good because if you think America's
doing just fine, don't skip to the poetry reviews.
Our enemies are barbarous, our allies duplicitous
but our smart bombs are smart - that's how they found
      you.

Dad said all wars are resource wars. Follow
the money. The world needs more order, nothing
less than Nazis, never may the anarchic man's thoughts
be my thoughts, each shove sends a ping,
shields urge on shields, helmets helmets, we can be
the reigning kings between the last empire and the next

or implement a vision of collective deliberation
and binding agreements. Can China's navy
be harnessed to ensure free passage through
the South China Sea? We'll see how
things work out in the next generation.
In the meantime should I read Henry Kissinger's
      meditations?

He who thinks poetry's effete
probably considers Darwin a geek and Einstein
a postal clerk. Containment means leaving space
for the passionate and zealous to face themselves
and giving them missiles that don't work.
Slowing everyone down until one thing's done well -

governance or sustenance or brotherhood.
When violence comes to the neighborhood
the hierarchy will hold or fold, it is then the peace work
      proves relevant.
Failing to achieve understanding, we're searching outer
      space
for an entity to unite us as humanity.
That person, or city, is consciousness.

By that what is meant. Sitting still and thinking deeply
on the relation of anger to coercion,
systems for correcting the decisions of earlier presidents.
We're required to report incidents of depression
to a doctor because you're a valued member of of our
      community,
or so insignificant no one notices or cares.

How necessary the interface of war and poetry!



'If you think America is doing just fine, then skip ahead to the poetry reviews. If, however, you worry about a globe spinning out of control, then World Order is for you.' - John Micklethwait
- with lines by David Ray, Tom Friedman & Homer