Analysis of Old Soldiers Never Die, They Just Go Out Of Print

On post again tonight, this tattered army
Waits with stiffened spines, lines locked, stock still
As a palace guard, untouched as a musty past
That perished when the hearts of books, like men,
Curled, moaning, inward into inner darkness,
Finally turning up their frozen toes.

How their dusty ranks recall those ghosts
Of glory, all those storied years before
The long retreat was blown. Just sniff their covers,
A whiff of moustache wax and musket powder,
Oiled swords. And listen to an age’s
Pageantry parading grandly toward us…

Here they come! To patriotic cheers,
Fifes twittering amid the boom of drums,
A burst of British Grenadiers. “Eyes Rrright!”,
A twirl of sticks and black batons, raised rifles,
Ranks of stolid Black-and-Tans and Scots,
Their swirling Black Watch tartans bright as blood
Below the brilliant black of bearskin hats.

And then the thud of big black-booted tread,
The slap of snapping flags, the clap of hands
To sides, a sudden silence broken by
The drone of pipe and tabor, and the crack
Of rapped commands, the whack of stocks on stone,
The swipe of whetted blades, the clash of sabres,
Flashing in the sun that never set…

Except it did, of course. Now little’s left
But ghostly echoes wafting down the halls
Of decades near bereft of hope. These old
Battalions, and their fading pages still
Recalling brighter times, are all that blocks
A backward, awkward, crabbed advance, a heart
Of darkness in a bleak and blackened age.

And even these, once drafted by the dreams
Of long ago, are slipping slowly backward
Out of memory, their gold medallions,
Like those sabres, tarnished, scarlet tartans
Scarred and slashed, splashed black with bloody splotches,
Battered bearskins snagged on splintered drumsticks.

Still, no tears for them. No flowers, please.
However age-encrusted they’ve become,
I’ll let no harm befall them. Dim and musty,
Yes, but they’ll survive the night, old soldiers
In reserve, on guard both soon and late,
Till sunrise, when the hearts of men, like books,
Begin the long march home. They also serve…