infamous battle in the unspoken war

The flags all drawn taut from my fingertips
like canopies over our belief, watch them billow
with the wind that cruised through temples and
graveyards, that knew of curses in its delicate yarn.

Swords raised like pens across the field of white,
our mercy leaves only with our light, the drummer boy
sings in the awful breeze that peace is just a callow dream.

They made too many mistakes with me upon the brow of the ravine,
they tried to kill me with a dagger and let my body bleed
all over the mossy green rocks while the skies watched
and the stars blew angry light aloft as they cursed me even
upon my death bed instead of saying goodbye.

Tired scenes of wartime revenge, war is just a big revenge
that never ends until they fuck up, until they lock up
the edges of the wrong person's neck in the torture coil.
See them living now, burning down the houses where light
left like an old perfume, see us raise our swords across
their eyes with vibrant steel luminous with the deafening
music of lightning's thunder, our lives aligned with weather's
best friend and the purpose of our lives.

Those who give no mercy expect it most of all,
like some terrible child eating the bones of his best friend,
they try to call us from down the hall to watch them slurp
in verses of cannibal appraisment, well I want nothing to
do with it all.

Fire bough ribboned across the horizon, we scorched their armies
with our Greek fire and bought their wives with our vanities
at the end of tragedy.

And the martyrs can win, the saints have all been like whispers
in an uncommon wind, while your voice is entrancing, but not with belief.

Say we were once lovers as enemies on the edge of thin shadows
beneath the weeping willow tree
say we had come here
to fulfill our belief
that wonders are common and miracles a relief,
that answers are given like pears from a burgeoning tree.

Massed black armies, aircraft voodoo, battleship drumming,
and gears left in ruins. Banks breaking like curtains upon
the view of a room. Angelic castles unveiled by mist raveling
through the canyon.

The engines of our lost sun are turning in the blackout,
the tanks screeching over rubble are rusting in clockwork
and above all our warfare love is staring after us like
a no-frills billion dollar trust breathing its money
through the autumn air.

How many times have we lived this before?
How many times have we died in trenchs traveling after some coveted disaster, how many coveted disasters shrouded in the siren's fog have we chased after,
how many lips have we forgotten how to kiss with tender promise, how many promises have we forgotten as they fell from our loveless lips again, how many questions are we going to leave hereafter, how many quantities are broken by the general who called
with iron hand and ax
the boulder down upon
bodies struggling like frenetic ants
squirming for survival.

There is always something to hold on to, high upon this hill above the war made of fireballs and charcoal valleys, above the love made of burning hearts and cinder rings, above the decay of infernal lies and dusty catacombs.