In days of old we had our David
Who wrote in psalm his time at war
He found a way to voice his heart
And verse away the blood and gore.

Since that time our poets changed,
And chose to take a simpler guise
The bard told stories in the tavern
And flowered war in people’s eyes.

The soldier distanced from the verse,
His heart at war and mind asleep
Prose was left to rot away,
No rhyme could voice a pain this deep.

So here I step on musty ground,
And forge anew this broken blade
Melding Shakespeare to his Caesar
And blend the road the two have laid.

What to call this new conundrum,
This voice I cry above the grind
A missing link, this deadly duo
A soldier’s heart and a poet’s mind.