Armageddon: The Dressed Rehearsal

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Will I come and lend a hand?
My Goodness, no, I answer,
ducking three-round bursts.
Please consider what would happen,
should I change my battle tactics,
to the Promised Land.

Alexander's lancers are about to
charge my Western flank. I need to
call in salvos of phosgene gas.
The archers guarding my howitzers
are drunk and Patton's reading
Chekov in his tent. Col. Custer
fell asleep at Mass.

Please understand my problems;
Machiavelli's DeskJet just
printed out my orders in Sanskrit.
Eisenhower was taken up in rapture
watching Salome dance.
Shouldn't you be at Golgotha
posting RSVPs? I've got
laser-guided ARAMs to advance.

Sorry, I can’t help you.
Agamemnon’s on the march,
signed a pact with Mussolini,
promptly goose-stepped into war.
Sitting Bull is dreaming
soldiers falling into camp.
Last night, Pancho Villa
gave his pistols to a whore.


Our satellites are saying
weather’s on the way.
Dense fog around Jerusalem,
my Tomahawks would go astray.
Centurions would wind up
slogging through the mud,
Someone else will have to help you.
Oh, and by-the-way,
Herod is an ally, as of yesterday.

I know He needs a lawyer, but mine
are busy now. Gerry Spence is
shielding Eichmann
in a tort at Nuremburg.
Clarence Darrow is excavating fossils
in a forest near Krakow.
Moses wandered up a mountain
whispering a mantra.
They say he lost his marble
shooting craps with Cleopatra.

A temporary halt? Hell, I couldn’t
order that. Herodotus has his
press-pass stapled to his hat.
I can only prosecute this war.
If this battle should go badly,
I’d be crucified.

Bob Evans Digital Art