Riddle me again,

if strength is defined as ‘having no fear’ and weakness is defined as ‘falling to fear’; why are the fighters against fear labeled strong? and the calm ones within fear labeled weak?

for if  the calm ones have overcome the fear mentally so that’ they see no  need to  fight the fear visibly; are they weak?

and If the weak are raged with fear that they  see the need to battle are they strong?

And if a warrior is borne in battle is he really 'strength' given that he came from 'weakness'? ,a descendant of the inability to conquer within and a  product of the visible battle.

and if the weak one is forgotten in peace because he was absent in visible battle having  conquered the fear within is he weak?

They are the destroyers,
They have come through air,
Burning our streets and
spreading out despair,

With their stolen voices,
They have joined the laugh,
Burning through the corpses,
The righteous attack.

We are fallen warriors,
bodies rot in dirt,
We are eyes of ravens,
The blood of the earth,

With a rusty weapon,
We will spread the word,
The swords of our forefathers
are not of this world.

The cloud will spread,
The sky is dead,
Remains are bared,
The sky dies scared.

No mercy!
No freedom!
No mercy!

I wondered what you'd hear
If you strayed into my soul...
You would hear screaming
Passionate, anguished, fiery
You would hear my
BATTLE CRY
Because there's so much life
So much humanity
In the act of fighting
Against the cold, the death
Even on my darkest nights
All you would see is my spirit on fire
And you would hear my
BATTLE CRY

See the banner that touches the sky?
See the party, the song, the dance?
Look Close!
There is more to be seen,
It is the battlefield of many wars
It is the funeral procession for all the soldiers lost
Each person marches for a hundred more
For those who are hidden and
For those who have fallen
Smiling through tears, this is our celebration.
Together we march alone
For those you cannot see
Glory and Sorrow
Love and Loss
This is Pride.

There are only so many battles
one can fight at any point in time.
to be struggling on so many battlefronts
can leave you weary and even broken
whether they are mental
or physical.
For a mere human mind or body
to be occupied on so many fronts-
well, they were never designed
for that sort of pain.

They wear their bodies inside-out, some are ashes but few are dust. Vacant orbits, oblivious to the incoming tide and the percussive artillery from the heavily fortified positions on Rue de la Mort, view the world with equanimity. Their bloodied stillness at odds with the surrounding tumult.

It’s at times like these - pinned down behind a burnt-out vehicle, the sand skipping around me with the phut-phut-phut of spent rounds - that I envy them their final freedom. Not that all deaths are as elegant and instantaneous as a well aimed bullet to the head.

It is a fleeting thought, hardly even that, a whispering somewhere in the background of my consciousness, like listening to a low-tuned wireless. And with victory as with defeat - with the ear-ringing silence - the whisperings become louder and more persistent.

Right, left; up, down; stop, wait; walk, run; sink, swim; live, die. Some pray to survive, other’s yearn for the sweetspot, the one shot ****. Regardless, there is no doubt that we who remain will fight on for weeks, for years, for decades and continue to live the uncertainty of the living - sweating bullets until kingdom ****** come.

Brother, our young summers held us in a long chain like the phalanx of bronzed soldiers forward flung,
And the lion was skinned and hung out to dry like the sunned-fur of the beach at Marathon.
Brother, help me to dream again.

Brother, our yellowed days shook us like serried Hoplites of an atomic age,
Shoulder to shoulder, friction rubbed, all ranks split from the fissioned-flanks.
Brother, help me to dream again.

Storm-footed Titans of heat, dust, and irradiated wind pry from a ruptured Tartarus,
The flanks are an open pulse; the scorch-song thirsts for its sea-cooling to stone.
Brother, the lion lives that wears your skull around its mane.

Brother, dream of me again, of Persian arrows and lances,
And my fallen eyes instead of yours pouring in
With a sea of lavender water and mists
And summers of once-were.