Our Life Is Your Death

You must claim lives, so many lives
To exert upon this earth
An earnest will to live
Becoming an instrument of death
Is not a choice, but fate
Under laws made eternal

Our life is your death
And our death is your life
In this shrinking world
At whose throat
Even Eden draws her blade
In this zero-sum game

We've tamed the absurd
And brought all discord to a halt

Those are the marvels of hierarchy
Upon which a Polis is built
Tribe and class, caste and creed

We will be the Sparta of your Athens
If it was murder the first to be outlawed
That's because it's our life's blood
Whether by word or whether by blade
It is death that permeates our every quest

Our death is your life
And our life is your death
In this shrinking world
At whose throat
Even Eden draws her blade
In this zero-sum game

There won't be rest nor peace of mind
So long as anything that breathes
Evades our grasp
Become death to become life
Swear the oath and be reborn

Yet in the swing of the pendulum
Through the course of age
No one retains mastery over death
And still, under gods or tyrants
Or philosopher king
Our life is our death
And all is well under the Sun