Battle Stations

I wrote this several hundred feet below the surface of the ocean onboard a Trident nuclear submarine on patrol. It was written after one of a thousand battle stations missle drills which always seemed to take place a few minutes after finally falling asleep in an attempt to get an hour or two of sleep before going back on watch.

Down here,
in the ice cold deep,
we play a game
which is supposed to be deadly serious,
but which nobody takes too seriously,
otherwise,
it could be deadly,
so we compromise
and try to sleep it off,
but some still insist
on playing the game,
so we play,
and most of the time
we lose,
not that we really lose,
otherwise
we’d all be lost,
and then
there would be nobody
to play the game,
and the game
has to be played,
otherwise
it wouldn’t be a game,
it would be real,
and politicians would panic
and press little red buttons,
out of fear of losing
something which only they
have to fear losing,
because everyone else
has nothing to lose;

oh alright,

I’ll wakeup,
yes I’ll play the game today,
hold on to your poopiesuit,
but I won’t play much longer,
so use me while you can,
because soon
I’ll be using you
to play the game
for me,
so I can sleep at night
and not dream
about little red buttons;

will somebody
please cut out
that annoying,
snickering alarm!
.
.