Senn High

around our school we all linked hands
a human ribbon we became
before us, the military with its marching bands
and war not in our name

they couldn't get into our halls
they came before our pride
to the dean's office they made their calls
but never got inside

how charged the atom bomb they'd drop
in foreign lands, the glow
the larger cancer: will wars stop
if here we stopped their show?

as though we students were for rent
that was the colonel's aim
to pitch around our school their tent
and hurtle at us shame

we will not be "the chosen few"
pegged for the sergeant's drill
to pour the sweat on hitherto
and on some beachhead kill