Metallic Heroes Did not Dare to Turn their Backs
Bronze swords, and shields, and helmets with their crests
They wore while slicing men with wounds and death.
The warriors wore bronze breastplates on their chests
To save their lungs from being pierced so breath
Would wheeze with bubbled blood from them. Greek bones
And shins wore greaves in bronze to save the fronts
Of legs from havoc. Soldiers loved the groans
Of enemies and sounds of death’s last grunts
In victims. Those were something Greeks could gloat
About once spoils had been taken. In
Their courts much later troubadours could bloat
Greek victories, forging glory out of sin.
..The mutilated dead lay on dark fields
….Without their looted bronze and gory shields.