Three Wars

The first war, the war of 14 to 18
 Begins with an uprising of adrenalin
 The first war begins with the testicles descending
 And desire assassinating the child that you once were
 The war begins at school when you rebel against the maths teacher
 Who touched you up behind his desk
 And ends when you've failed your final maths exam
 And had your first success with sex
 The war brings new discoveries
 How to make dog fights with your thyroid and pituitary glands
 How the Zeppelin can fly at your command
 And a generation lays down its life
 When after all they've done for you
 The good parents die
 Resurrected as your enemy
 And when the girl you've started wanting
 More than all you've ever wanted says "no"
 She is, she is your enemy too
 But you survive
 And from the trenches of your newly found opinions
 Freshly dug, quickly abandoned
 The white flag waves for an armistice on Christmas Day
 Then your voice rings round the family front room
 Like a drill sergeant's in front of his platoon
 Broken, broken too soon
 But you survive
 The second war, the war of 39 to 45
 Begins when you identify your own inner Third Reich
 The second war begins with a sudden hypochondria
 A visit to a doctor who waves a piece of paper and says
 "This time it's just a false alarm"
 The war begins at work with some intoxicating news
 When the letter comes that offers you promotion
 And ends when you decide to let them offer it
 To younger men with more ambition
 The war brings new perspectives when you suddenly see through
 The politics of power which possessed you
 Through all your waking hours
 And a generation lays down its life
 When the whizz kids of the industry
 Slow down, slow down and die
 Resurrected as your enemy
 And when the woman who accepted you
 When all the rest rejected you goes
 She is, she is your enemy too
 But you survive
 And at weekends you get custody of an only child
 Already adolescent and unreconciled
 Who laughs at you, you and your new-found piety
 And his laugh rings round your faint desire for god
 Like an order from an inner firing squad
 Breaking, breaking the ties of blood
 But you survive
 But the third war is the war that never comes
 The war that never comes to everyone
 Begins the second after next by accident
 Ends everything except itself
 The war brings nothing, the unimaginable
 That the old imagine all the time
 Imagine imagination dying
 And a generation lays down its life
 When it refuses the creation
 Of new ways, new ways to live
 And when the great invention falls apart
 Ripping through the atoms of your heart
 The third war, the third war will start
 Which no-one survives