New Year's Day

January One
The planet's back to where it begun
We pause before we journey on
Another lap around the sun

Yet there are bigger orbits here
What do you know of the solar year
How long until the weary Sun
Returns to the place where it begun

In concert with the Milky Way
In nested orbits day by day
We go where we've not been before
Sailing to an unknown shore

Expect the seasons one more time
But don't presume to foresee more
This new year however fine
Shall not pass where we've been before

Comrades

You arrived, green, wide eyed
To fill the boots of a fallen comrade
There was panic in your eye
And the smell of one soon to die

You proved yourself at my side
In firefights of dusty suicide
I covered you, you covered me as well
I watched you grow a shell

Then you told me the tale of a previous war
Showed me the scars of a previous tour
And after the battle was stilled
You looked at the dead, grunted and said
On day one I thought you'd get us both killed

Leopard Hunt

The leopard maimed my baby in the night

He's in the corner now - but there's no shame just fight

"A leopard's what I am

I feed myself on man

Don't dare to ask what I have done

When I maim a little one"

He looked me in the eye

And spat it in my face

Then turned tail and ran

Leaving not a trace

Good brothers hear my cry

Tomorrow night your child may die

Good brothers rise up in the night

Scour the forest by torch-light

Run the vermin to his lair

Together let us kill him there

Raise the hue, shout the cry

Before day breaks the beast must die

Such was my resolve

As I slipped into the night

Be it dark - be it cold

I'll not give up the fight

But track the worm to his lair

And finally confront him there

And having forced a way within

Emerge with a bloody leopard skin