I am not fat
Nor fifty (plus)
Nor bald
Nor halfway (or more)
Through my span of life,
My earlobes are not grown,
Nor are there bags
Beneath my eyes,
Wrinkles on my face
Slack skin upon my hands,
It's just the mirror tells me that is so,
And it's lies,
All lies,
****** lies...

War is hell and battles
Are ****** and hard
Whether in flander's fields
Or spiritual plains,

As I sit scrubbing ocre
From my sword's flanks
Lest it's vitriol pit
My blade

I test the edge and run
An oilstone along to
Finesse away dullness,
And look around

At a post martial landscape
Littered with scorched scars Where demons were,
And shell holes whence

Came criticism and ungrateful
Viciousness and suspicion,
And realise for the ten Thousandth time

There is no victory in valour,
Nor glory in a battle won,
Just a grubby pause before
The next attack