1.3.2005 | Tenpins | g1: 65(!!) -- g2: 114 -- g3: 100
Be silent, Forkbeard, and pay the respect
That all reserve seasoned campaigners, troops who
Wintered battle and slaughterous war bearing wounds
Grimly for more years than you count days for your own.
Their strong hands thick plated with bloody callouses know
Defeat too, old friends hacked down amongst the flames
Beneath walls abandoned, their battle-marks left for repair.
How can they not remember spear-blows never returned?
They learn shame whose weight makes life a burden, shame who
In the coldness of wives denies what once out of love was granted.
Every day it crushes the shoulders of old men.
Shame decays the spine.
A twisted root, ill with dark thoughts, it poisons the tree,
Sabotages heroes.
Do not forget in your impudence, boy,
Brave as you are,
That not just once have you set gaze on an old voyager
Dogged by crones and the spiteful sons of warriors yet unreaped--
Through the village square he rears in human pain, the familiar
Signs of humiliation blood-etched in his face's trenches,
Lines carved by axes. In the eyes shame, a weary mist, settles and
The lowest farmer sees that the mark failure can never be forgotten.
But never ignore his heart often so stout, and as he slips
Grabbing at the collar of some urchin who savage mocks in terms
He cannot yet understand, quarter the older one goodwill.
As he topples, his sword drawn seething in rage for vengeance
Admittedly too ambitious, wrest him up and for what was
Preserve the dignity that remains.
Remember that no man will escape without his share of losses
As long as death strides the battle-line, a demon for all to see,
Grinding his teeth, burning with confidence that he gloats over,
Jowls rotten in blood.
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1.1.2005 | Tenpins | g1: 152 -- g2: 93
(1)
Tongues that cannot see cast me wounded,
But my opponent was left lying to drink in his own blood,
The lesser man slain, the better scratched.
(2)
With tight-toothed vigor I plied against my foe,
Yet my rout was defeated by Disaster, not of mortal men,
Who like a plague strikes to rot the hearts of heroes.
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