Alexander's Homecoming (September 2007)

Well Alexander never thought he’d find himself here again,
the place of too much sun and endless sand,
he took his army and won his women but not all went as planned,
although the flowers were nice, the flowers were nice.
Now a little voice, from a little man, in an unknown faraway land,
tells Alexander to go back there and fight,
the man puts a helmet on his head and a weapon in his hand,
but not like the glorious, heavy ones from millennia ago.
Alexander grabs the reigns of his modern steed,
a bulletproof humvee,
he tosses bombs on Babylon without seeing his enemy,
in olden days his nose would tingle at the smell of blood,
but burning oil and sulphur are nauseating.

Alexander knows the battlefield and has studied strategy,
but his new nation kills indifferently.
these hands were once a sculptor’s
and could halve a shielded man,
but now they only atrophy under mundane button pressing.

Where are you Zeus?
Why have you let mortals forget your brother Hades?
Their respect for the dead?
I need you Aristotle to guide me in truth,
where are you Hannibal, I crave a even match?

I hope that Harry Truman is weeping on his Promethian stone,
I hope our burning bush drowns in the rain,

I was lauded as a warrior,
I was crowned a Persian King,
and now I abjure the throne.