I Dance (The Sword Dance)

I Dance (The Sword Dance)

I dance like a madman, dance like a fool,

Stomp my pattern in God’s tears in a pool,

Dance to remember, dance to forget

Try hard not to cry with my own tears of regret.

They say I am crazy, bonkers, insane,

Yet still I must dance, and swing, and careen,

A parry here, a thrust there,

My hacks and slashes dash through the air,

Enemies unseen, to all but myself,

All come alive from the books on my shelf,

If I dance fast enough maybe.

Maybe my phantom swordplay will bring her to me,

But nay, that’s not only reason, the cause,

That to my fragile sanity gives pause!

I MUST dance, I MUST fight,

I must slaughter away the pangs of the night,

Killing my loneliness, killing my despair,

Killing nothing more than my fears on the air,

I scream at the clouds, howl at the moon,

Come out and face me you miserable buffoon!

You made me this way, I know you did,

You made me act in a way that no one understood,

Fix me now, and set me aright,

Light my dark path, and turn off this night,

Still, on I must dance, again and again,

Into the heart of the proverbial lion’s den,

Give me an army of foes and a sword: that is all,

And I will cause all others to panic and fall,

I know what I want, it’s behind the glass case,

But I will never smash the glass, at least not at this pace,

So I hack and I slash and I laugh at the rain,

Drown all your sorrows in the earth’s deep dark pools.