five in the morning, five hours to go

[matthewstryker]

Anachronism

I find sanctuary in a screaming wind
across a battlefield of paperwork
written by androids calculating
outcomes of attrition, but my mission
is a massacre, brother of disaster
and heir to the throne of a hurricane.
Save your grace and spare your breath,
death equalizes the disparity.
Apparently, I’m a samurai
of the twenty-second century, slicing
semicolons with a razor’s edge,
red pen opens wounds across a war-torn
draft as I cleanse the imperfections in
their reflections with indiscretion. My
honor is on the line with every swing
of the sword. If vengeance is for the lord
to decide, you’ll know my name when
you see what I’ve done. I don’t waste time,
counting syllables and similes significant
in surgery, and my pen isn’t sterilized.
Honor is earned in every spelling correction,
redirection, explication, observation, all these
fall to a sword that could slice the electrons
off an atom. Sheath my pen when I’m done
with the last mistake, find something to
focus on when I meditate, the bloody mess
I leave on the battlefield screaming for
atonement, but there’s no forgiveness from
a twenty-second century samurai.

--I wrote this.