She is Helen and I am Troy

Endless clashing silver arcs of men and metal

Evening before the blood and dust spray begins to settle

Momentum builds and fills the fields with fires

The monasteries are dark and crowned with broken spires

The wise men have hidden themselves away

In the city of lock and key

Endless empty whitewashed streets

And knives silent waiting

Anticipating, your every mood

Trust no soft cloth and motherly smile

The knives are like steel thorns

On the giant branches of the streets

Under everything

Here we love and trust the knives we can see

For at least they hide nothing

Outside the city of lock and key

Woods of willow

Serves as highways for the returning dead

Immense armoured caterpillars

Ferrying bodies back to the newly wed

Where are the soft days and the soft ways?

Where once stood a fountain bubbling

Now stands a white pillar of rock

It is a mark of battle distance

Not a battle in itself

But merely a signifier of battles past

A reminder in stone

An obscene record of pain

For reasons impossible to explain

The stream is gone

Passing warriors have reshaped the land

Nothing has remained untouched

Not even the smallest and most fragile of things

Have escaped the many marching feet of conceit