Poems on the Eve of War

March 18th, 2003 | Sabertooth

[Sabertooth]

Two Towers

Shattered in the blue dawn's early gleaming,
Steel and glass fall down one fateful morn.
Twin Towers burn in fires of hateful dreaming.
We wake to pyres of nightmares newly born.

Now, rebel clerics fan the flaming rabble.
And yet, the Bell of Hope chimes. God, we hear it
Above the evil death-cult's towering babble,
Ringing to our heart, our mind, our spirit.

So to our Towers our streaming faces turn,
Still standing on our bannered City's Hill--
As Root and Branch our enemies can't burn--
As Pen and Sword: the allies of our will.

For God and Country stand our righteous Towers.
The Two are not Jihad's. The Two are ours.

In Their Wake

Up among the ancient Afghan bluffs,
Bin Laden the pretender mulls his plot.
This Allah's Mahdi lost to fate's rebuff:
He called "Jihad!" But echoes jeer his thought.

The Silk Roads veiled about the Khyber Pass
Allure the Conquerors to grasp at glory.
Their blood-caked legions trample down the grass,
With brimstone in their wake, and woe their story…

How Alexander whipped his crimson rains!
How Ghengis Khan raised pyramids of heads!
"I am the Scourge of God!" roared Tamurlane.
All victors; all defeated; all are dead.

Deep in the earth all conquerors learn well,
That only One has conquered death and hell.

Remembering Again

December 7th came again at midnight
Like smoke and darkness from the Rising Sun.
Remembering again, we fight the Good Fight.
Another mourning cries at evil done.

The eagles' realm which holds the Purple Mountains
Has bred a folk upon its heartland grain,
Rained by waters flown from Living Fountains,
Who eat of fruit grown on the moral plain.

In peace our generosity is gold.
Our stature arms ferocity in war.
No Lilliputian tyrant's ropes can hold
The longhorn or the grizzly… So we roar.

Let History warn well the still defiant:
The doomed will dare to rustle sleeping giants

Twelve Eleven

It's ninety odd degrees the world has spun,
Along the path on which it's ever turning;
A quarter orbit 'round the placid Sun,
Has past that dark attack-- Our wrath is burning.

Clocks chime. Bells toll. Let's roll on from the West!
The wheel has turned, and we will spin it more.
Let Islam learn, who woke the giant's rest;
Be with us or against us. Here's the score…

Kunduz, Kabul, and Khandahar have fallen;
The Taliban now reap their grim rewards.
Our daisy cutters flare the poppy pollen,
Cremating Tora Bora's cultic hordes.

And when these fires go cold and smoke rolls back,
When this horizon clears… We'll see Iraq.

Such a Time

When Pope John Paul and President Reagan took
Assassins' shots, what Providence was shown?
When both survive the Eastern Walls they shook,
What unseen ways beyond our ways are known?

When human events flow bloody in their courses,
Are Wallenburgs and Churchills called from shore?
When Major Washington survived his horses,
Himself unmarked, did History mark more?

When Esther found herself the cherished Queen,
While Persia's Jews were facing death's abyss,
Why did she choose to risk her life between?
Who called her forth, for such a time as this?

This Christmastime, Who calls our military?
Who called when Gabriel announced to Mary?

A Christmas Moment

Encamped on crags, the wind brings whiffs of victory
From every burned out cave and smoking hole.
Each ashen Afghan pass betrays a History
Of fallen soldiers' footprints; vanished souls.

While the vanquished and the victors turn to dust,
On hills and plains their battles echo on.
And yet, as swords and plowshares earn their rust,
Beyond these fields Eternity goes on.

So carve your faith on your aortal chambers,
And clamber up the cliffs to serve for Good--
Your hearts enflamed with God's immortal embers,
Allied with what His Prophets understood.

But first…. take pause from all your stratagems--
And wonder at the Star of Bethlehem.

Homeland Hearth

Merry Christmas 'round this spinning world;
You Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines.
In this great battle into which you're hurled,
Know now you're spoken in our prayers and dreams.

The Universe is vast and often dark…
The galaxies are scattered through the cold…
Yet in this Milky Way we see the Spark…
On Earth we witness History unfold.

Sometimes we wake up and the world is changed,
And we perceive a glimmer of His plan.
Our eyes unchained, we glimpse the pre-arranged,
And we accept the cause of mortal man.

You fight that Freedom's Fire will ever burn.
Your cause is ours; our debt is yours. Return.

The Oryx and the Lioness

Young oryx and her lioness arose
And stretched. Our distant ken then dimly yawned:
Her orphan had no dam, yet… love? God knows.
We smiled that cat and kid had purred and fawned.

She hearkened to the antelope as hers,
A roar of Judah's past and future fleece.
Deep in the darkest countenance, what stirs?
What breath behooves ferocious hearts to peace?

Their paths now crossed, her oryx at her side,
The lioness approached the pond to drink.
But nature's other hungers crouch and hide;
In underbrush, a fateful pride may slink..

By other jaws, her oryx lamb was met…
Isaiah's oracle is not quite yet.

Mortal Pestle

The sweating palms of parched and idol lands
Are dropping dates in living dead oases…
Obituaries, nameless as the sands.
The agar augurs ill… of grave embraces.

The headwaters of Eden flow through wastes,
Beneath whose ruined remnants of our dawning,
And under palaces of tyrant tastes,
A pestilence is nursed… and plagues are spawning.

For yawning like the ancient, leprous skull,
That swallows all the kin of those first spouses
Into its void, for better or for null--
The wakened pox descends on sleeping houses.

A mortal pestle grinds tomorrow's fate,
As sorrows issue from the Ishtar Gate.

Bird Calls

An olive tree bestrides a cracking mount
Its blackened boughs bescrawled by dirty talons.
The hour befalls our moments lacking count…
A predawn pall of dark and light imbalanced.

An owl hoots alone. Where is his query?
What urge predates his instinct that he prays?
When awe lives in his eyes that makes him tarry
Upon the branch an instant… Who delays.

A thief would find no watchman there to look,
But in the air's deduced unspoken calls.
The raven caws to find his master's brook.
The owl takes his roost on broken walls.

The cock crows East. Again… impending portent.
The hidden Sun's increased beyond the Jordan.

All poems © by Sabertooth, 2001, 2002, and 2003.

[Victoria Delsoul]

You're very welcome.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Bookmarked, btw.

[Sabertooth]

Thanks, folks, for your very nice comments. It's always very gratifying and humbling when others enjoy my verse.

Regards,

[MeekOneGOP]

[bwteim]

Thanks for reposting your poems. - bw