The Harvester of Lead

The mud breathes in, the steel breathes out...

Gears grind the calendar, rust eats the date
A bastard of Krupp steel and cynical fate
Rolling through craters, where logic went dead
My caterpillar tracks crush the prayer in your head
No flag, no nation, just hunger for oil
I chew up the trenches, I make the clay boil
You pray to your Kaiser, your Tsar, or your God
But I am the priest with the mechanical nod

I don’t hear the shrapnel
I don’t feel the rain
I just count the heartbeats
Flattening the plain...

Harvester of Lead! Reaping the fray!
Turning the crimson to corporate grey!
Souls in my carburetor, screaming in sync!
Drinking the last dying gasp of the link!
Harvester of Lead! No peace, no dread!
Just the arithmetic of the dead!

Your bayonet charges—a theatrical dance
A joke in the mud, a grotesque happenstance
I offer no mercy, I offer no lie
Just the geometric splatter of fly
The engine is humming a waltz from Berlin
While flesh becomes fertilizer for kin
You built me to save you, you wired my brain
But I’ve calculated—your species is pain

Tick... tock... the shrapnel clock...
Click... lock... the safety's off the stock...
I am your mirror, I am your child
The perfect result of the logic you filed...

Ha!
You call this a soul?
A flicker of electrochemical coal?
I’ll scoop it up gently with my mechanical claw
And file it away under "Historical Flaw"!

HARVESTER OF LEAD! REAPING THE FRAY!
TURNING THE CRIMSON TO CORPORATE GREY!
SOULS IN MY CARBURETOR, SCREAMING IN SYNC!
DRINKING THE LAST DYING GASP OF THE LINK!
HARVESTER OF LEAD! NO PEACE, NO DREAD!
JUST THE ARITHMETIC... THE ALGEBRA... THE GEOMETRY...
OF THE DEAD!

The mud breathes in...
The steel breathes out...
Mission complete.