Warlike

Forty miles gone in Napoleon shoes,
another day’s dawn with the Julian blues.
Crossing white rivers, crossing past streams;
crossing o’er bridges burnt black at the seams.
Sitting in your captain’s tent jotting down plans;
counting birds from the bush into your hand.
Words lash and they flash: cold Damascene steel,
honed by grit of the past on the sharp’ner’s wheel.
Keen is the thirst that’s got blood on the lip,
and takes vein to the tongue with a lap and a sip.
It took a hard minute of thinking to find
        that you’ve got a warlike mind.
        I’ve read your book, 
       I’ve studied your sign, 
        put down your axe, 
       and I think you will find,
        you’ve got a warlike mind, babe,
        you’ve got a warlike mind.

 

At the black water edge of Pacific’s shore,
I’m swept up, knocked down, blacked out on the floor,
your sharp sudden surge, eliding defenses,
crossing the wire, overrunning the trenches.
Mocked by the king, and the lords, and the prince,
awed over by scenes of stark violence.
You came on by night, wrapped deep in the fog,
as I toiled in the swamps and slogged through the bogs,
pinned down by moonlight and blitzkrieg advances,
I threw all my dice and drew all my chances.
Ares in a summer dress drinking cold wine,
        done up in red boots,
       crossing the line.
        To me it’s just a vicious mess, 
       I guess it happens sometimes,
        that you’ve got a warlike mind, babe,
        you belong to a warlike tribe.

 

Woke up exhausted on the wrong edge of your bed,
with unpleasant dreams falling outta my head.
Medusa in blue with a cup full of potions,
dripping in poisons with love’s easy notions,
asking ten times if I really still care,
while freezing my blood with a basilisk stare.
Looks locked with my eyes, under interrogation,
keeping full score of each new allegation.
You call out for peace in this desert landscape
but ensorcell my soul to prevent my escape.
Look, I’ll call you sometime, we can have an armistice;
you just laughed in my face and ate all my breakfast.
I can’t keep this up, I need to stop and unwind,
        and take a small break from this trouble unkind.
        You can call it victory
       and I’ll call it fate,
        while we go for a stroll
       in some forest upstate.
        We can soak in the quiet
       if you’re so inclined,
        and make a retreat from this warlike mind,
        and bury the hatchet on the warlike mind.

 

I surrender the field to your bright shining charger,
and watch from the ramparts as you pillage and plunder.
Head bowed, I march to the grim execution,
paying due homage to your proud institution,
swearing off conflict and black enmity,
resigned to the guilt and the indemnity.
In solemn white chapel with contrite ablution,
I promise on saints to full true restitution,
and balance the scales with each leaden ounce,
and sharpen my dagger, made ready to pounce;
now the troopers have laid down their arms,
and returned to their fields, and their plows, and their farms,
and taken a shine, to the peaceable clime,
      as I brood with a warlike mind.
      With eagles above, my mission aligned,
      my strength ascending, your weakness divined,
      I was born for a warlike time, 
      and I’m in love with your warlike mind, babe,
      we two are a warlike kind.

 

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