The Warlord Wars No More -1
Clemency is a quality that I never understood
until after I crucified the Cilician pirates on Pergamus,
amusing isn't it, that I see mercy where brutality stood,
Death has a heartbeat for all of us,
there's no greater mystery than our destination in death
perhaps Death is God
a silent sublimity in the absence of breath,
and as we lye upon the pyre as a smoldering facade
the atrium of our existence caving in
the galleries of our life peeling away
we reach for the burning lesson
that was overlooked in the opulence of day,
when the pomp of our passions retire
the truth of Life's desire sings in the fire,
The truth of Life's desire sings in the fire
and what of the soul in the aftermath of the ashes
will the gladiator and actor be for hire,
will the gods scourge or celebrate with laurels or lashes
the promises, pain and performances
of us, the simple and divine,
are we to possess faces and voices
upon another amphitheater's feathered shine
or is immortality merely a musing of mankind,
a phoenix in the memory of upcoming generations,
where roams Alexander now, what of his conquering mind,
has he vanished within the Void's limitations,
death allows me to justify both mercy and lethality
for it is in our mortality that we love creative liberty,
For it is in our mortality that we love creative liberty,
does Rome have a soul,
does She have a shadow stretching into eternal territory
is Her spectrum of strenuous spirit a gruelling growl
born to be lost in the iron frost
of warfare's winter
only to be an echo in the springtime boast
of a new Nation's strike to power,
erstwhile the Etruscan etymology for supremacy
couldn't escape the root meaning of fate,
Greek genius gaveway not to giants or elastic legality
rather, the geometry of battle grit put it on the post mortem slate,
Carthage collapsed after centuries of sea trade feast
heros and helmsmen crushed under Time's heavy crest,
Heros and helmsmen crushed under Time's heavy crest,
Quaster Antony, what say you of my grim ramblings...
I think you've got too much Transalpine ditch wine in your chest,
were you raised by Druids or Romans...
Come on now you blithe beast,
pray tell where the speartip of your mind's spirituality goes...
Who knows what shores the dead arrive at Gauis,
immortality and the sails of souls are the purview of the gods,
glory, grief and graveyards are the guarantees of our seeds,
I say we let the Gauls and Germans worry about their future existence
after we excise the eyes from their arrogant heads,
I've been a soldier since I was fifteen, I'm not a sentimentalist,
as for my speartip, I'm going to spread love with my Helvetii mistress...
Pay heed to those deeds from whence the heart must confess...
J.A.B.
Copyright © Justin Bordner | Year Posted 2018
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