Each day will still end with a settling sun

The full moon sky fills with fractured clouds,
and they ripple in streaks and wander about,
making empty ruts seem like welcoming soil
on a hot desert night spent protecting the oil
in the sands of a desperate foreign town:
the outskirts of Baghdad, a policed crowd,
where sounds that deafen and strike at the heart
invade the flesh, create camouflage art.

Downtown the merchants are setting up shop
and a lineup of victims is met, shot by shot,
with their backs against brick, by a firing squad,
left to be loved by a nameless god--
be it Allah or Vishnu, Jehovah or Jah,
they all fall the same: face frozen in awe.
And the leaders keep laughing, keep lapping along
with their mouths open wide. Their great thirsty tongues
form the pipeline, the drills in their desert holes.
Petroleum's taste seduces the soul,
like a boy in a sweetshop, what does he do?--
if the money runs out, just pocket a few
and you have all you want by the end of the day;
it's just politics, the American way.

Some march in a uniform, some in a robe;
the color of skin marks a friend or a foe.
The roads are plowed by the tank as it treads,
aims and then focuses, cross colored red:
It rests on a boy, guns strapped to his chest--
he knows he is right, he soon will be blessed.
The tank-gunner knows that the boy is corrupt;
his hand's on the trigger, the sanddunes erupt
and the boy-threat is gone--his guns are no more.
'Didn't know who he was--oh, the fortunes of war!
Eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth.
It's not playing sides, it's a matter of truth!'
The tank-gunner knows that his side will win,
and the young boy's friends will swear their revenge
and know that their cause is for life and for love--
all anyone wants is a mansion above.

So which way is right? Which way is wrong?
Just follow your leaders, just play along.
Because US or Sunni or Shiite or none,
each day will still end with a settling sun.