Rules of Engagement

Hell, hell, you know them, thrifty as scatter-bombs
Pawing at their groundings, both for one and one for both
Marking out positions in the sex between the war zones
Toe-brinked on the future in the forest undergrowth
Where lovers’ shrapnel-bites fall like people out of favour
And memories that mould the muddy floor
Still cling as they embrace in their symbiotic greed-sweat
And draw a white flag veil over the things that went before

Oh, and he is a barbed-wire bandage, coiled around her body
And he is a lingered scar, a sorry blood-tattoo
And she is a ground-bomb waiting, poised to implode herself
On all the grubby little things he’d like to put her through
So, hell, hell, you know her, faithful as a shooting star
Gnawing on the wishbone of the things she’ll put him through

And so they are ground-up by the spat-out dregs of history
Crossing-off positions like tomorrow’s gone before
And so they stay love-locked in collaboration
Feel the east wind sway between their consciences at war
But he bites her lower lip
Finds it bitter as devil’s grass
Decides to stay and go at once
Then go and stay some more

So, hell, hell, you know him, grounded as a tidal wave
A wastrel refugee from a military routine
To a twofold detonation in a scratching hayloft bedroom
Where they’re tonguing out their brains in a place they can’t be seen

And in her sleep she feels the imprint of his broken fingernail
A scouring recognition of every stream and track
As in his jackboot dreams he scrapes some homeland map embroidery
Eye-hooked and skin-locked on her virgin back

Oh, this homeland, invaded and set-aside
Where the forests bleed defectors and the rivers rinse through hate
Bordered between the sea and someone else’s nowhere
The very definition of a modern nation state
But hell, hell, you know her, docile as deer-ticks
Wide-awake and occupied like a timeless nation state
And so they are spat-out by the ground-up dregs of history
Like two fenced-off tracks, like two dammed-up streams
And so they feel the lash of reconciliations
Hear the west wind purr “conscription” in between its screams
And she sucks his furball tongue
Finds it sweeter than tooth rot
Then repatriates him
To the gulag of his dreams

So she says take the long walk home
But don’t fear it (don’t fear it)
And wait for the knock on the door
But don’t fear it (don’t fear it)
And stand in your pinching boots
But don’t fear it (don’t fear it)
And pull back the rusting latch
But don’t fear it (don’t fear it)
And recognise your fear
But don’t fear it (don’t fear it)
Just walk like a no-brain soldier
As to the manner borne
Just walk like a no-brain soldier
In the no-brain soldier dawn

And she draws her fingers across his crumpled mouth-lines
Drawing out his essence, leaving one great bloodless husk
Then kisses his fingerprints away and then goodbyes him
Out to greet his duty in the needle-pointed dusk
And he walks like a no-brain coward and he walks like a no-brain virgin
Deserting to the army as tomorrow falls beneath
His swamp-rat scuttle footsteps as he scurries off to leave her
Tonguing out his dried blood from the gaps between her teeth

And she is torn directions
To a broken mutual homeland
Bordered between nowhere and the amber-glistening sea
And she is torn to remnants
Like a punchbag hangdog scapegoat
Lying sick and panting
For the amber-glistening sea
Tearing up directions
To the amber-glistening sea