Verses On Five People Being Killed By A Falling Package Of Foreign Aid

(inspired by Aid Airdrop Kills Five People In Gaza After Parachute Fails)

When God placed Man upon the earth
In days of God knows when
He said to love the Lord your God
And love your fellow men

It's safe enough to love the Lord
In worship or in song
The Lord your God is far away
And very, very strong

But he who loves his fellow man
Must careful be, and agile
For fellow men are very close
And very, very fragile

So Midgley, Marx, and Mao, and more
All had their tale to tell
They tried to help their fellow men
And pushed them into Hell

And Galton, Ehrlich, Robespierre
Corbusier and Kipling
All saw their actions ripple out
And worsen in the rippling

And every time you throw a coin
Into a beggar's jar
The coin could strike the beggar's face
And leave him with a scar

And every slice of bread you give
To a child starved and broke
Could lodge the wrong way in his throat
And cause the kid to choke

The best laid plans of mice and men
Are oft unwisely laid
And end with Palestinians
Struck dead by falling aid

When young, I learned philosophy
At many a scholar's door
And all the wisdom that I learned
Came down to options four:

• To make your heart as hard as stone
  Like the heart of a machine
  And sit there supercilious
  Because your hands are clean

• To pet your dog and kiss your kid
  And call your duty done
  While far away, the Gazan girls
  Are dropping one by one

• To rush in bright and glorious
  'Neath the golden flag of Good
  Then apologize at leisure to
  Men crushed by falling food

• Or to creep in like accountants
  Using gain and loss as anchors
  As cunning as the serpents
  And as cold as Wall Street bankers

When I was young, I fought among
The golden-flagged crusaders
But now I’m old, and now I stand
Beside the snakes and traders

So when my plans go all awry
And my name becomes a curse
I can say the other option was
Eleven utils worse

And if upon the Judgment Day
God comes to me in wrath
I'll have a PowerPoint prepared
To prove I did the math

And if, upon the Judgment Day
God says my math is wrong
I'll tell Him He is far away
And very, very strong

But man is very, very close
And very, very brittle
And we can only do our best
Or sit there, noncommital

And so we sighed, and multiplied
And after that, we prayed
For souls of Palestinians
Struck dead by falling aid.