A Living Ignominy

I live with an ignominy deep down to the core My sails were aloft but never brought to shore With grief & remorse I commence a tale untold As the inclement storms will only manically unfold A leader of veterans I forged through barriers As a messiah amongst a legion of warriors Surging, yet again, against the will of my men I braved the storm at near full strength Imbued with pride, instilled with an obsession My zeal for glory vindicated all transgression The battle that pursued was but a prelude to disaster An adversary, not even the greatest could master So it finally happened, and it mattered no more The enemy neutralized, the balance restored All that remained was a carnival of death Struggling to be complete to its very last breath None, then, was spared save the lonesome I Oh! What a pity the killer wouldn’t die My struggle it appeared would be a mournful drudgery As I would merely be living my share of the misery The melancholic waves, underlining their worth Preserved a fair distance between misery and mirth Having abandoned, so cruelly, my treasury of successes I dwell in the dungeons of self-imposed recesses