‘Threnothriambics’

Who were the enemy?
Who the friend?
Am I talking to a silent mirror –
some solitude of self?

‘Good morrow, cuz’, you say.
‘Is the day so young?’ say I.
Was this a battle?
Did I sleep some war?
Does the night move over?
Have I reason?
Is there reason to be sore?

Wiped, wiped out, is old me.
No time, no scope,
for play of feeling,
for a show
of innocence, some cloak.

Sweet strains I hear
from distant shore – or,
is that a siren’s call,
another call of things
so sweet they bite
you from behind, and
then you yelp in
righteous dismay, perhaps;

or, bay for blood from
corpses, so spent
they leak no tear, no redness
in their coal-tar eyes?
Have I won or have I lost?
Were you the enemy?
Was I ‘the lies’?