Duellist

To whom must I carry
This fight for my life?
May I choose the weapon
I wield in such bout?

Too much goes unchallenged
To forego the knife
It’s all souls be damned
If we don’t have it out

Or is it unwritten
More truistic lore
That what may have been
Is what yet must endure?

If such be the ruling
I fancy it time
The tables were tipped
To new flavour of crime

I’m deluged by duty
The dreadfullest foe
And Wednesday’s child
Has a head-ful of woe

A small enough wager
This minimal soul
All but shredded for bandages
Wholesomely foul

To gather her forces
Aye, therein the rub
With little to muster
And less up above

But battle she will
Nay, still stronger – she must
Ere the blood in her veins
Stains the dust dirty rust

So passionless sweethearts
Untruthful and grey
Be leached of my love
And stay hidden away

I’ve a need to reclaim
All the hours I lost
And hold views on the interest
Added to cost

Here’s a health to the vigorous
May she prepare
For all that her demons
Can throw at her there

It soon will be ended
Decided and done
And with luck of the draw
She may keep what is won

Revolution

the categorization of life lets us know our station
so we cannot fail to grasp just where we are
the nametags thrust upon us show degrees of separation
and we see that some among us have come far

but I am more than just a name,
a string of letters just the same
as many others in this vast humanity
and when you try to box and file me
in a cabinet of others
I must scream out ‘individuality.’

I am a person, not ‘a human of caucasian extraction’
and there sure is more to me than meets the eye.
You must surely understand my very evident frustration
for you’re clearly not a ‘simply average guy’.

why don’t we start a revolution
overthrow the institution
show the world what we are fighting for and why?
put down your weapons of destruction
and let’s build a brighter future
where tomorrow’s child can dream to reach the sky.

It’s more than a feeling

Magic we find in the strangest of places
sometimes ’tis lacking in belt and in braces
and costs not a sou, but is worth more than gold
for the memories last to the time we are old.
The shyest of all find they grow to a hero
when they hear the call of the sweetheart they seek.
The poor and the humble, the lackey, the zero,
when lover’s in trouble, become less than meek.
And these battles we fight, with the heart not the head
do not rob us of life, but they feed it instead
so we nourish the flame that we carry about
and our torch is a beacon, our song is a shout.
Do not mock at the magical daze you may see
when we walk hand in hand down the street, you and me,
for what some view as weakness, makes me brave and strong,
and do you really dare cry all mankind is wrong?

A plea for putting the clocks back

Oh give me once more my time again
That I might use it better
There’s so much more I would like to do
Not follow the law to the letter
I’d love to dance on a windy shore
Swim naked in the sea
Make passionate love to you once more
Take full-fat milk in my tea.
I never again would refuse to fight
For fear of what I’d lose
But into battle would march – with might
To wound, not just to bruise.
I’d see all colours in their true forms
Not fudge equality
And I’d laugh at any who chose to scorn
The way my life would be.
Yes, give me once more my time again
I know I’ve more to give!
That I might share all the love and the pain
That comes with learning to live.

The argument

I watch the air grow dark with cloud
Until the tension is so loud
It finds its voice and spills to shout
As insults, accusations out.
Their barbs that stick into our ears
And mar our conscience, rot our fears
So we retaliate in kind;
Bile oozing forth from tongue and mind
And frothing loud as thundrous strike
To echo our profound dislike
For all you hid, and all you feel.
When spoken thus, a Catherine-wheel
Of torture grows with rack and screws
As we absorb your poisoned views,
And sickened, know the sad demise
Of love’s young dream, before our eyes.