poem
Volume 22, Number 3

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

If it cost $10 to kill each enemy
    in the Revolutionary War,
If it cost $100 to kill each enemy
    in the Civil War,
If it cost $1000 to kill each enemy
    in World War 1,
If it cost $10,000 to kill each enemy
    in World War 2,
If it cost $100,000 to kill each enemy
    in the Korean War,
If it cost $350,000 to kill each enemy
    in the Vietnam War,
And if the cost of killing an enemy continues to rise
    at the present rate
In 100 years it will cost
    10 million dollars to kill each enemy soldier.
But the good news is now gay youths
    can wear stunning uniforms
        while they learn how to slit throats
    of cute enemy recruits from behind.
The bad news is gay soldiers with their jaws shot off
    crying like babies in no-man’s land
        will never give a blowjob again.
The good news is now gay soldiers can cut off the cocks
    of enemy corpses to add to their collection
        to show to their straight pals back home.
The bad news is gay soldiers with their rumps shot off
    will never feel a lover’s delirious erection
        slowly plunge all the way in.
The good news is young gay women
    can examine the breasts of corpses
        of young enemy women
    they ambushed as they slept round their campfire.
The bad news is young gay women with their tongues cut out
    because no matter how much they were tortured
        they refused to talk
    will never lick their girlfriends’ clits all through the night
        as if their lives depended on it.
The good news is now young gay women
    can teach young gay women
        the best way to disembowel an enemy woman with a bayonet.
The bad news is young gay women
    whose faces are shot off but are still alive
        have to wait at least 10 years for a face transplant.
The good news is it only cost $500,000 to kill
    each Iraqi soldier during the Persian Gulf War.
The bad news is if the present rate of increase
    of cost of killing an enemy soldier continues
        in 1000 years
    it will cost a billion dollars
        to kill each enemy
    for Freedom.


—Antler

(first appeared in Chiron Review)