Scimitar / Shamshir

Lyrics

You trace my shape against the case.
You call me a crescent moon.

You stand in the gallery, tracing the sweep,
Watching the watered dark lines in the steel.
You think I am poetry, a secret to speak,
You don't know the physics the radius can feel.
My balance sits exactly two inches from the cross,
So the wrist forgets it holds a heavy weight.
When the sand is blurring by and the breath is lost,
You just hold me out. You never hesitate.

But I was always afraid of the straight line.
I was terrified of the sudden, heavy halt.
I was born to be the passing wind, a silver spine,
To draw across the shoulder and let the tension drop.
The broadswords of the west want to bury in the bone,
But I am terrified of being caught.
I am a curving thought that wants to be alone.

A fifteen-degree deviation from the true.
That is the secret of the draw-cut in the sun.
I do not cleave a man in half, I simply pass through,
Before the muscle realizes it is numb.
If you thrust with me, I will fail you in the dark.
I have no point to break the armor's heavy ring.
I only know the sweeping, solitary arc.

And I was always afraid of the straight line.
I was terrified of the sudden, heavy halt.
I was born to be the passing wind, a silver spine,
To draw across the shoulder and let the tension drop.
The broadswords of the west want to bury in the bone,
But I am terrified of being caught.
I am a curving thought that wants to be alone.

To be planted in the dirt.
To be lodged inside a shield.
To lose the momentum of my birth,
And be forced to hold the field.
That is a prison for a creature of the slip.
For a blade that is an echo of a whip.

So leave me on the velvet.
Let the straight swords have the mud.
I am a shape made of motion.
I was never meant to linger in the blood.
I only wanted to pass...
Through.