Honor Knows No Confines🛡

I: The Maw Of My Fate    
   
Surrounded by judgement at the high walls:    
The coliseum with its layered tiers,    
The paying citizenry face Caesar   
Who’s stony glare speaks silence for my death:    
   
A man trained in the techniques of restraint,    
Planning his next move of knight taking rook.    
I am executioner incarnate,    
Turned inward, guarding that right for myself,    
   
Warrior, gladiator; scored on my shield;    
Blade & mace strikes that I’ve returned tenfold.    
It is honor and glory to the brave    
That awaits me as my life bleeds away.    
   
II: The Way Is Certain    
   
Upon his shield, feelers retrace his wounds;    
Feather’d moths softly attend in darkness.    
       
The drone of his breathing suddenly shifts    
As mist rolls into the tent by torchlight.      
       
With the portent of imminent death near,    
Unguents anoint him in ceremony.    
       
Sole utterance amiss in grave stillness,    
Palpable as the arenas that bore him,    
   
That bow as failed contenders’ vigilance,    
And time grows short, as a girl of lineage,    
   
With blood of the gods by decree ordain’d,    
Solemnly rises, to sit astride him.    
   
Honors, to offer of body and song;   
The final journey to Elysium.