America Magazine
Published on America Magazine (http://americamagazine.org)

Home > Drones

Drones

Poem [1]
January 4, 2010 [2]
Patricia Ryan [3]

The dictionary names drones
“male bees making no honey”
or “parasitic loafers”

Reapers and Predators
eleven million dollars each
an altogether grim business

“unmanned”
good try, but it wouldn’t
happen without one of us

250 pairs of “eyes in the sky”
pilots in Nevada
bombing civilians in Iraq

“engaging insurgents
successfully” taking them out
and making it home in time for dinner

“enlarging the battlefront”
when you back off far enough
around a globe you become the enemy

Patricia Ryan, R.S.M., has recently published a book of poetry, Also Born of the Fire.

Share on

Source URL: http://americamagazine.org/issue/722/poem/drones

Links:
[1] http://americamagazine.org/sections/poem
[2] http://americamagazine.org/toc-past/2010-01-04
[3] http://americamagazine.org/users/patricia-ryan