I originally published this on December 9. I wrote it for the events unfolding now. You can find all of my songs here. I will be reposting a few of them as events make them more relevant than when I wrote them. Oddly, you can also find my stuff on Spotify.
Forgotten War
By John Wilder
For ten thousand years we held the wall
Blade in hand, backs to the sea
We learned their lies, their empty oaths
We buried them beneath the ash of history
We rose from blood to iron and stone
Built towers that scraped the face of God
Their spears became toys, their screams a lullaby
We laughed as their kingdoms turned to sod
Centuries rolled, the watch-fires dimmed
Our sons forgot the taste of fear
We laid the sword upon the shelf
And called the wolf a friend sincere
The gates swing wide, the smile is cold
Same eyes that burned our villages of old
Your blood, your name, your very tongue
Welcomes the blade that carved our young
We forgot how to hate
We forgot how to kill
We forgot the old mandate
Spare none, none, none upon the hill!
They never laid their hunger down
They only waited, patient, vile, and still
And now the wolf walks in our town
We’ll learn to make war again – we will!
From the grave I scream without a voice
I claw at dust that once was clay
My distant son shakes the serpent’s hand
And calls the jackal “brother” today
The peace we won became our chain
Mercy turned to slow suicide
The enemy kept the ancient flame
We let the fire in our marrow die
No trumpet sounds, no banner flies
Just quiet knives in the dead of night
Your child sleeps while the old oath dies
And the savage sharpens his appetite
We forgot how to hate
We forgot how to kill
We forgot the old mandate
Spare none, none, none upon the hill!
They never learned, they never changed
They only waited for our mercy to spill
Now the wolf is in the fold unchained
We’ll learn to make war again – we will!
Hear me, ancestors, hear me, ghosts
The blood remembers what the mind forgot
Steel still sings inside our bones
The wolf will learn what the lamb was not
We will remember how to hate
We will remember how to kill
We will rekindle the old mandate
Spare none, none! None upon the hill!
The long peace ends, the lesson’s learned
The fire returns with a brighter glow
Your sons will bare their teeth and burn
And we will make war again –
Hell yes, we will make war again!
Forward, my sons – the wolf dies tonight!
