The business of war

You asked me if I would like to go for a pint
It was early December and your feet were beginning to lie to you

You had seen active service in Korea and your eyes drank cruelty from the veins of thieves

So many of your friends who had once defied gravity
and plunged towards the stars
with their mighty fists
had become
no more than
crooked signposts
to the perfidious crepitus of time
in the grass behind
your local church
to be cried and pissed on
in equal measure

It was only a pint
we would have shared our tales
of naked ambition
of lusts and languor’s as vapid as Prospero
as the landlord screamed 'time'
and Christmas Day bore down upon us
like the glittering whore
it has become

But your invitation
stayed in my desk draw
and the phone
remained in its cradle
and if I had asked you how that felt
that tiny betrayal
you would have told me
that this
was the business of war