The IED Registration Department

There will be no demonstrations.
Hand your devices over at the border.
They will be inspected, catalogued,
Tinkered-with to work out provenance,
then packed up neatly, marked as passed.

We'll hand them back to you,
for onwards passage to the battlefield,
where detonation depends on timing,
but neither skill nor training,
other than misguided ideology.

We reserve the right to test them,
prior to use, fired downwards into sand,
remotely from the regulation bunker,
stamp them with our little flags,
to make them authorised.

In political return we'll let you sail,
permit your sea patrols to catch our freight,
unpack the billion-dollar fighter jets,
pose with our missiles in your embargoes,
to boil the blood of your citizens.

We'll hold our hands up to this trade,
you caught us stained as we caught you,
red-handed at the window.
The only difference is our range,
that lets us dodge the shatterings of bone.

You'll analyze the samples from the scene,
picked up in plastic marked "Made in China",
and find a gene for self-destruction,
in all the casualties, post them as proof
of dedication, to classify the dead as heroes,

And were it not for guaranteed oblivion,
we'd end up in the same grey waste,
the eternal boredom of the bureaucrat,
left alone with just ourselves to fight,
vacuous, immortal combat with no end.