Untitled No. 1

It started with words in a bar on a late winter's evening
By the first flush of spring, sides were chosen
And lines were drawn
The red summer sun set on fields of banners waving
And the autumn leaves fell like bodies
From the battlements
We dug in, played to win, for we knew
Our cause was righteous
It did not matter that we knew not what it was
For the radio said that the lives of our wives and babies
Were under attack by vampires and aliens

In the mud, we suffered the frost and the cannon fire
As generals fed on the breast of the war machine
Commanding us to die for their gilded pleasures
While maggots ate all of our rations clean
A thought like a thread sent out
From beneath the Atlantic
Carried news of the fast-approaching enemy line
As my lips drank deep the blood of a terrible monster
I recognized two dead eyes and a face like mine

We broke ranks, smoked and drank
In the heart of an unholy city
Traded chocolate with children
Hid Vermeers beneath our coats
Made love to the whores on the steps of the Tower of Babel
And woke with steely blades pressed to our throats
A thousand years in a cage, we thought ourselves forgotten
Prisoners of something we did not understand
When word finally came that the fighting all was over
Though we could return, we could not go home again