Lifted The Great Broadsword Poem by Kevin Carney

I lifted the great broadsword…
The heft and weight empowered me.
I took the oath of allegiance…
As it was a sacred trust.
I looked at the cross around my neck.
I looked to the heavens…
Belief and faith my guidance…
I step into battle in all the name of the lord.
The smell of death did not frighten me.
I took to travel…
To a far away land…
So strange and mystical…
I felt the fear down in my throat…
The heat and dust, overwhelming me…
I endured the pain, the lack of food and water…
My church empowered me…
To kill and maim all in the name of the Holy Father.
Holy the war…
Righteous the cause…
The politics aside.
I did what I was told…
To be able to drink from the silver chalice.
To eat the body of Christ…
To save my soul and send away my sins.
How was I to understand?
Really I was the common man…
It was not for me to reason.
It was not for me to think for myself…
I only lived for the cross and to enforce
the words of Christianity….
Politics a concept that was lost on me.
I left that for those above me and who could read and write…
They sent me to battle.
A winning cause, a righteous war…
Only to realize as I lay bleeding…
It would be my last crusade…
To see so clearly and as the light get brighter…
That I was a pawn it the scheme of things.
A pawn of men and not God…
Who had been corrupted by their own power and greed…