I was walking, brooding, when I saw a marquee
with black plastic letters:

IN PERSON TONIGHT -
ONE NIGHT ONLY - WAR!

I paid the cover and entered, hoping to learn more,
for what is war?
The early answer I'd learned I'd long ago trashed and burned
After reading long speeches of stirring bright clauses,
Verbs in medallioned uniforms, rigid with martial cadences
And, for the dead, some tedious pauses.

The theatre inside was grand, echoic, alive with murmur.
After a burdensome wait, the vaulted space went dark as a crypt
for a minute, with the usual titters.
Then, center stage,

Bloody Conflict steps without a tuxedo into the spotlight,
Stopping gossip and every heart.
He is dangling an eye, and some ribs are showing, plus
A knotty red quadrant of brains above a hanging bit of skull and hair.
He is trailing guts like Marley's chain, and as he breathes,
slow and again, there is a rasp and a rattle like wind in a battle

As he drags air in and out of his gaping chest.

The audience, even hardened chatters, hushes as some dark matter
Oozes from War and drops with a sodden, soft platter on the lacquered hardwood.
Vast and motionless is the air in the great room, yet slowly
A putrid stink suffuses the tiered seating; it causes some dismay and an echoed retching toward the back of the large, vaulted gloom.

War does not engage us nor regard us.
He stands and stands and stands in the glare of stagelights
Till murmurs of discontent
Swell to forthright indignation as this
Noisome, soiled, bloody, upright, gasping meat
Fails to entertain us. After all,
We've seen zhombie movies.

After what seems like ages War exits into the darkness, stage left.
The spotlight shifts to stage right and the emcee,
One Mr. Gordon W. Lilac, snicks out a few baseball jokes, a God-Bless, and a reminder that buttery popcorn and other treats are available at the snack bar in the lobby.
Applause and conversation ensue, and many soireeists
Bladderfully maunder their way to the brilliant, sparkling, tiled pissoirs, where they cue up and converse,
Patient to disperse the familiar itch in their lower bellies.

Outside, the valets are at full tilt to bring forth
The polished plush automobiles with surround sound
And safety features of great ingenuity.