She was the blade and the blade was her

She was the arrow singing, the lioness’s purr

And the shamshir was singing a song of the ones

The ones from long ago, their escapades and deeds done

The broadsword’s edge was lit on fire

Silhouetted against a burning tower’s spire

They were her weapons, weapons so keen.

~

She was the light and the night

She was the irrevocable fight

She was the requiem of the curved rudus

The threnody of the talwar’s lust

The sweat of the saber dripped

Onto parched battlefields, dust, skeletons that sipped

All they could from the blade

That cut down heroes of old, that made them fade

They were her weapons, weapons so keen

~

She was the moon’s lonesome companion fellow

She was the echo in the cavern that bids hello

And the dirk spun in hand

Used to cut through traveling merry bands

The dirk, it sang a mournful dirge

The rapier, now, it was rapacious

It screamed into the mistrals with its cry of a scourge

The slender katana was vivacious

In its rhapsody of the bloody rivers spilled

Didn’t mean a thing

They were her weapons, her weapons so keen

~

She was a mother’s weary sigh

She had the look of a plunging raptor in her onyx eyes

Her hanzo hefted high

Her cutlass raised in a warrior’s salute towards the sky

A salute of blood spilled, and opponents worthy

A salute of drinking in dim taverns after the loss of a brother-in-arms, a sister-in-arms

A salute to a carotid artery punctured on the tip of a newly polished blade

A salute to the winning of nations, thrones, and the loss of flesh and bone

All because of her weapons. Her weapons so keen.