"Yield not!" The crusty soldier's cracking voice pealed out
As under strain of years but not daunted.
His bowed and knobby pedestals supporting but a frame;
Determined now, these hairless bones rise to flight again.

And cocking back his helmet a-crest his weathered head,
Which now is but a smooth expanse where fiery shocks had been.
He cries, "You must not yield!" And then with great effect,
His fist ascends above his head and swirls to punctuate.

"The man is getting old," loudly whispers a bending inmate,
"We cannot fight in our pajamas!" retorts his friend,
As spooning through his soggy flakes he slowly wags his head.
Indeed the eighth floor regiment does not attend to what he said.

Yet in such moments men must fight, come cereal or pajama plight.
The soldier's voice wails louder still, as if to live was all for fight.
But specter units do not rally, and distant thoughts blow through their brains
Like breezes going nowhere fast.

"The liberals are upon us!" And upon the table now he strides.
At this minute, without a formal end, the scene dies cold
within his mind.
The five a.m. alarm is ringing, time to rise again.
Yet, hands behind his head, he strains for one more look and muse.

"Can I but fight so as to win? Or is my fight a phantom one,
and lost on addled souls?"
"You may be old," stares down his wife, "but get that carcass out of bed!"
"No man of mine will sleep when saints before have bled!"

Stumbling into clothes again, he makes his way downstairs
And over cornflakes calls to mind the nightmare left behind.
He reaches up to find his hat inside the closet by the door,
And places it upon his head, a helmet made for war.