The Victory March

A silver trumpet raised up to the sky.
Its wielder blew a single note on high.
The harmony was carried by the wind
Up to a man whose lute played rin-tin-tin,
And three by three the beats thorough would fly
While four by four the enemy would die,
Until at last the anthem did begin
To echo off the walls in such a din
That only silence ever could endure.
The solemn peace a victory assured
To those who were themselves the enemy.
A drum began the tap of victory,
And soon a fiddle offered up a chord
To those who were themselves what they abhorred.
The dead were mourned in faithless ecstasy.
The anthem slowed and paced for clarity.

The cunning tone in patience grew more grand.
A piper joined to glean the promised land,
And dances not long after followed suit.
Not one wise soul could recognize the root
Of such complex and reckless contraband
(Which no weak soul could easily withstand,
And so none did--good souls in pride forsook
That thing which they so easily mistook
As damnable: the sound of their own selves).
A deep bassoon was pulled from dusty shelves
To share its base and sinister outlook.
The anthem played through every stream and brook
Until at last they dried and parched the elves.
In want of drink, they too defied themselves.
The living pained to recognize the tone.
The anthem slowed and paced for men alone.

Eventually (I say for reasons good,
For many years passed by which were withstood
By powers old, unburdened by the song),
A harp joined in to satisfy the throng,
And this enough ye ought believe it should
Be thought to spark the tinder neath the wood
So placed to burn what virtue had held long,
But mercy's absence aims to prove ye wrong,
For in so joined an organ's deathly moan,
A cello's stoic, mesmerizing groan,
And booming shocks of some confounded drum.
The dances met with whiskey, gin, and rum
And slowed to honor music quiet grown.

At once it stopped: a piano played alone.

The anthem faded to a silent hum.

The world was left with nothing new to strum.

And so besides with nothing to become.

7/02/07