Page 39 - NS 2024

Rebel Songs
Alexander Dickey
A dream of a time long gone came while I slept, From out of a darkened forest came an army
Of artists and thinkers dancing on the air,
The glow of campres bled through the canopy, Righteous songs forged in those ames now lost In the same wind the rebels dance on.
In a bombed out ballroom I danced with a girl
To a waltz meant to be performed out on the front, My boots scratched up the worn parquet oor, And like whirling dervishes we spun until a voice Drowned out the strings and brass, one which called, “Keep ghting! Stand your ground until everyone’s fallen!”
As we danced came news from the eld
That fresh armies were forming, soon to march On our positions, and through the heart of our camp We composed our last odes and treatises as clouds Crossed the moon, and the wounded groaned for food, Though we wouldn’t admit it, the war could not be won.
When judgment day came we danced to the beat of howitzers, The rhythm of our ries, in a clearing through the forest I could see my beloved, But then trees splintered and the earth Began to rise, an unyielding tartarus hotter than the sun. My comrades were dying all around me, and in their throes I heard music, the nal notes of an old rebel song.
Our hopes went up like the smoke on the battleeld, And I, broken into pieces, crawled away from the carnage, The years slowly healing me save for a limp in my leg. And I slept on and I dreamt on, and another army rose. The