Bloodless Battle

Agincourt and Crispin’s day,
when played upon the stage,
is all rousing speeches for the soldier’s
honor and emboldened glory,

But this is bloodless battle
with simulated swords,
neither slopped with mud
nor stench of sweat
and the noisome rot
of perforated guts.

Those that outlive this day,
returning home after the play,
can boast that they did thump upon the boards
but in the field that day
real men spilled honest blood
and there is no glory in that.

If we are not frighted by false fire
neither will we be moved to violence
upon the field, to slaughter and to gore,
by rhetoric, no matter how well spoken.