The key to worldwide peace and happiness
Is dropping this competitive facade.
The arms race has us snarled in such a mess.
It points no place but death. In fact, it's odd
That anyone should care to die that way.
Compared, a natural death would be sublime.
The trigger may be pulled most any day,
And then so many, gone before their time.
Who here could bear the thought of such a sleep,
If life had been so cruelly adjourned?
The few survivors then would surely weep
Because of tragedies they had not earned.
The leaders of our world, success in mind,
May seal the fate of all of humankind.
May 1983
This poem is made available strictly for sentimental purposes, and for the sake of completeness. I was born in 1972; you do the math. I had the idea that a sonnet was supposed to be "serious," so I picked the most serious topic I could think of at the time.