Heed the call-- you know that you must--
to the roaring rush of mortal battle
where black ranks of spear against spear
reaping the hearts of men with smiling staves
And hooked pikes goring the skulls
and spouting fire! Flee, flee! The call urges to
plant your feet and like a tree you must root
and bear the wind of men.
Heed the call to the lunge of feather-crested
beasts who walk like men, but speaks as
a bear, with fangs of iron. Rest! Rest!
Yield! Yield! what can counter such innocent
brutality, with body-upon-body, the blood
seeps, seeps...

Winter chill defines the hearts of men in this
Leaves all dead, like the carnage below
twist this way, and that, push and push at the edge
tumble! tumble! Over the edge and taste the waters
the ocean hungers, stifling waves moan:
come into the salty murk,
to strip the armor and flesh,
and leave a ravaged body,
and a rusted crust all rigid,
whistling a tune of joyous demise
heed and tumble--

The splintered shields brings the barricade to bear--
yield, yield. The Lady, strides from an aching moon
upon foolish combatants, to drag down to the depths
no staircase leads above. Do not stifle your spirit that thirsts
for sharpened vengeance. Fall upon the degenerates
with unsheathed fury, passions for punishment!
There will be no quarter. For you shall receive none.
Draw your formations in salt-seeded plains bereft
lessening, unnurturing; a bow’s hum will take you
how cold laments the sun, when the horn bellows
and the throat echoes. Set, sweet sun, dusk grows nigh--
go and yield, your warmth tastes bittersweet;
your light dampens the funeral pyres; you are
a needless symptom.

The curtain descends to scatter the sun’s children
when the greetings of undressed ferocity smile,
clinking before the clashing of crow’s cursing--
predicts the final note of death’s hymn.
No lost mannerism, cracked chivalry, to rally to
the only flag is the cloth of endless barbarism
don’t question the bent will of amoral men.

Look and see silence settle in the final falling
a quiet unknown when conquest marches.
Just when all seems to fade and sink into the dust--
the pyres, the pyres! Screams follow, of tortured widows,
orphaned children, and an earth torn by man’s red lust--
to screams, to flames, to ashes...
One last time the Lady opens to gather her new children
moonlit chariots pulled by skeletal stallions
no return for the life astrayed, heed the call, heed the call.
and the screams pass...as the fires depart...