Faceless War

A contract straight out of Venice,
written with charm,
executed with menace.
A pound of flesh,
but please, no blood.
courteous promise
served in teaspoons
filled with flood.

War borrows the same old crud
a patch of cleanliness
where stone sinks in the mud.

A silver mask that steals the sky.
praised for its precision fly,
funny how no one remembers
to ask
who has to die.

Only factories and plants are “attacked,”
or so the briefings claim
as if steel beams clock in at dawn
and payroll lists a flame.

Weapons fill the vacancy
where faces lived before.
no shaky footage from the street,
just conference halls
on the fifteenth floor.

Damage is measured in tonnage now,
not in human lives lost;
cameras focus on puppet's brows,
calculating empathy’s cost.

A war that keeps
its conscience clean
by choosing what to conceal,
a violence scrubbed
so spotless
you would think the world
were stainless steel.