Anachronism

OH WHAT A DAY!
It is as though the car exhaust I smell
is the scent of spent cannons
and the fog above
is their smoke.

The wayward vagrants,
asleep on the street,
or stumbling toward their next indulgence are
the wounded from the battle
of the night before,
and I feel like that champion
whom, neither wounded or captured,
who has fought and won,
and who now sees the diluted sun
as the brilliance of
a new day
and
a new battle.

Do not mistake my scabbard’s rattle
as blood lust
or hate unbridled.
Such might be the case
if I sought to disembowel
an opponent of lesser years,
or if I could not curb my temper
to be kindly to one who offers
no offense.

My skin and mind,
tooth and nail,
down to my web within
seem to be prophesying my hearts dearest wish
to overcome despair and anguish,
loneliness and futility,
and through a battle on nether planes
send them to oblivion,
defeated.

With my words I set
young green grass below a tule fog,
out of which shadowy assassins come forth
one by one,
to challenge me with weapons of
their choice.

Fist come tears,
which with but the wave of my woman’s sleeve are gone.
Then come other
insecurities,
but secure in our fidelity,
so easily have I won.

Over and over,
again and again,
deeper and deeper fears arise to test my steel.
But tempered in the learning of life’s former fires,
stronger now I am and feel.

And finally,
amidst no shadows
on my field of honor,
I hold the woman of my dreams
and kiss her.