Reflection

That frazzled face, festooned with streaks and smudges,
and furrowed brow of he who never budges,
with fickle frown defies a thousand judges
and bears the gravity and grip of grief and grudges.

Those eyes, deadpan and dark, repel the light,
dying as they despair for lack of sight,
declare that, damn it, they defend what's right
and deny - DENY! - their fallibility and fright.

Awakened by - and to - the gavel's chime,
the dawn demands he dance for devil's dime.
Both destiny and death will claim his time
and deprive his soul of all that is sublime.

But he will balk and blame his bane - his station -
on broken pledge of grateful adulation,
bemoaning boys who "breach their obligation
and dodge their duty to defend their nation."

His hardened heart and hubris armed to bear
all those daggers of damnation in the air
shot by shock of those who do not share
a soldier's circumstance by birth - such bitter fare!

No solace in his solitude, he'll strain
to find some purpose to his penance and his pain.
He'll bear the brunt and swallow his disdain
and surface by the sunrise yet again.