The Soldier's Story

Stormy, Dark, & Angeline
were waiting outside science
Commas burn in an obscene
Byzantine appliance

Borderline boutique charades
with limited devotions
Pioneering brief parades
of saccharin emotions

The cavalcade of courtesans
keeps the flames in fury

The unremembered soul recedes, lurking in the past
dwelling in the twilight dim, the numb vacuum enthusiast
-tic fool

So high above the fray
The fortress falls apart
walls and motes surround
a shell shocked heart

Frozen cockles crumble
in decoherent ruin
Withered places of retreat
the hole that you withdrew in

The cavalcade of courtesans
keeps the flames in fury
candles in the burning hands
complete a soldier's story

Though the mind has gone to sea
the bones have gone to cancer
the English garden gone to seed
love could be the answer

And when the night becomes
an unthawed apparition
The crones and hags and revenants
have formed a coalition

The soldier comes to tell the tale
of reduction and attrition
The greatest story never told
assuming the position