I’m running naked as the sky
the fields, the crops overgrown
sweat beads no more deliberately formed
on a wrinkled forehead so tired
of looking to see the road ahead
having abided by every law, I’ve been marching
for days and nights, one by one like leaves of fall
they fell until no one was left on the tree
I still smell my sergeant’s guts
my uniform camouflaged with blood
of friends and foes a nectar mixed
so intoxicating that I lost my head
the wearied boots, the pair of gloom
I can’t recall which belonged to whom
I stripped them bare I thought
they’d need no shoes to go to hell
the rancid flesh in my sack
can’t recall whose animal was that
I found it cooked already by a shell
and weirdly reddish water from that well
I had to drink or slowly perish
vampirism has never been conspicuous
canines would grow inside your mind.

I’m running naked as the sky
bound by the fog of war, the smoke, the stars
I had none to define me so I’m everywhere
I am everyone like a big blank canvas
no one would stop to stare
a deserter I look at him today and wonder
twenty-five years like a moment never passed
am I not better off living, a father
or would I have better been a martyr
dousing a dying legend of a cause or a man-
there were a thousand reasons to die for
I chose one for which, today, I live.