A year of disappointment,
Another shortly after,
A sense of fading strength and
The sting of wasted promise.
Oh and it was cruel,
The way that things unravelled,
A territory lost to
The reaches of the past.
The ghost of cherished sentiment
Rattling its chains,
The thrill of something different,
An unexpected pressure,
A knot to untie,
A skin to cast aside.


Oh and you
Knew him well.
He was kind,
You were young.
You were gone
For a spell,
Oh and he
Came undone.
Got a shine
To his teeth
When he counts
What he’s lost.
Though you tried,
Even you
Couldn’t tell
What it was.


A calling at the centre,
A chrysalitic tangle,
The vicious architecture
That moves like it is breathing,
And speaks to him of power
In iron superstitions;
His lucky number seven
His lucky number seven.
If suffering is virtue
Then surely he is good—
A final confirmation,
An enemy to conquer,
A place to take back,
A sacred way to die.


A revanchist will have his war of reclamation come hell or high water.
You and all the others, you might as well be ghosts,
And it’s a violent haunting.
So he keeps to himself,
And he’s drawing up a plan,
And you fall away like scales.


Oh and you
Knew him well.
He was kind,
You were young.
You were gone
For a spell,
Oh and he
Came undone.
Got a shine
To his teeth
When he counts
What he’s lost.
Though you tried,
Even you
Couldn’t tell
What it was.

There’s a spring
In his step,
And a war
In his head.
He’s got blood
On his tongue
As he speaks
Of a land
Where his pain
Can unfold
And find peace
With the axe.
Never young,
Never old,
And you won’t
Get him back.