"The Way Men Live Is a Lie"

The way men live is a lie.
I say that I get so goddamned sick
Of all these pigs rooting at each other's asses
To get a bloodstained dollar -- Why don't
You stop this senseless horror! this meaningless
Butchery of one another! Why don't you at least
Wash your hands of it!

There is only one truth in the world:
Until we learn to love our neighbor,
there will be no life for anyone.

The man who says, "I don't believe in war,
But after all somebody must protect us" --
Is obviously a fool -- and a liar.
Is this so hard to understand!
That who supports murder, is a murderer?
That who destroys his fellow, destroys himself?

Force cannot be overthrown by force;
To hate any man is to despair of every man:
Evil breeds evil -- the rest is a lie!

There is only one power that can save the world --
And that is the power of our love for all men everywhere.

By the incomparable Kenneth Patchen, from his book An Astonished Eye Looks Out of the Air (1945), as reproduced in Collected Poems