The speaker seems to be taking stock of what little they have. On a day that feels like a battle ("the day of the sword"), all they do is look after their knives, a modest, almost domestic kind of preparation. The poem then turns to money: they don't have a penny to pay the sea. That image is odd and a little grand, as if the speaker owes something to a vast, indifferent force, and can't deliver.
The comparison that follows is the most striking part. The speaker is like an ungrateful lover living near poverty, someone who is scornful about playing a bad hand. So the attitude isn't self-pity. It's closer to stubborn pride, a refusal to be humbled by poor luck. The title, "Standard issues," might hint at ordinary, everyday problems, though that's my reading rather than something the poem states.
The mood is wry, tense, and defiant: bare of comfort, but not beaten.