The Warrior

Looking left, right and back

Ready for the rear attack

Fan of battle tactics, read Musashi

Read Sun Tzu after

Black kimono banded by a golden sash

In my garden at dusk, imagining blossoms, slashing

At a man of straw dressed in your fashions

I am not without compassion but if I heard you’re talking trash

I rise up like a Kraken, ten times your galleon’s highest mast

Clashing rocks how I smash you

The rock and cross, the book of Matthew

My view askew because my visor moved

From flyblown stiles I chanced a good view

Of the lanes cloddy with manure, of the distance to chew

When white flag flew I flew at you, all caution eschewing

Seeming almost to zoom, a blur of motion consumed

Cogence, only the red zerg of my surcoat like a red zircon

First circuit with lance uprighted is a custom we defy and deny, mere circus

A brave knight flies only when that flight is an arrow

Whose iron eyes sight and are sated by a bite of a man’s heart

Like a dart from the blowgun of a pygmy, blown hard

I go at him hard fast, horse’s barding jangling, my own plate armour clanking

I lowered my lance and held it fast like a champion, it struck clean, I drank him

Dangling from his destrier, I thank him for this chance, sad to have vanquished him

Proceeding thence to the stiles, surmising the crowd’s delight with now upturned visor

It is the umpteenth time I have ridden and survived, I have developed style

And more importantly the comportment required to truly thrive.


Any man can drive a bay as if he never feared to die, it takes no wiles

But only a certain type can do so wide-eyed, knowing only triumph

He that will wield violence against an assailant, unto foe’s dying

He who rides so fearless that an opponent’s mettle is tried unto timidity

He who gallops longing clapping crowd loud, who no death cloud stirs over

He who feeds, exceeding the usual allowance of crows by many gallons

Who grows bolder feeling the drag to the shoulder as the lance reposes

In the killing manner, who with braced shield charges a dragon in old days

He who takes the roses of many beautiful maidens, whose soul’s cadence

Is that of rain, he is speedy as if enflamed and close to a dousing bay

Known many ladies, escaped from many casements, climbing drapery.


It is said he wields equally well axe and rapier, and never falls ill

Birds of aviary and bees of apiary seem to ape him in grace

All him lend gaze when swinging blades like blazes toward personages o’ hay

Thinks never of victory beforehand

Timing near divine, he who defies death, draws breath last, laughs longer.

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