No sacrifice too great, they said.

Men, women, and children, all

paying the toll, millions dead.

So many names unremembered.

Blood, gore, viscera galore,

armies march to certain death.

Worthless spilling of precious ichor

at the behest of a Tyrant's whimsy.

Civilizations crumble, crash and burn,

the powerful watch from a distance.

Men stand up and die in turn,

in mud and blood and oil and tar.

A pocket deep, no thought of the cost,

ambition and arrogance united.

Bloodied hands left unwashed,

"Let them pay the price of a mile."

A holy text, for peace and harmony,

shun the different, who live in sin.

For God: Fight, dole out agony,

offer up your pound of flesh.

A thousand years or more, fighting goes on,

a child's tears leave the blood impure.

The masses forget how many are gone.

Not here but there, why should I care?

The capricious and avaricious sit on their thrones.

A stalwart defender, his home destroyed.

A palace, magnificent, shaped from bones.

Against freedom it's treason: "Hold the line."

No sacrifice too great they said,

Men, women, and children, all.