Beloved King
A drab dawn drizzled onto the grey village.
Damped ashes lay stilled in the chill breeze.
No spark from the fires,
Which had caroused with the laughter
Of our plundering visit.
Animals, too contemptible to be taken as trophies,
Shivered and pawed boundaries where their pens had been.
The villagers’ charred corpses lay
Where the flies and foxes would shortly find them.
Such were the ruins our raiders had rendered
From the living hearts of the village;
Hearts, our fight against winter’s threatened famine,
Had trampled.
Such we were told by the fighters we had left to await that village’s men.
Doomed champions,
Whom with rumours of boar and deer in a distant wood,
We had lured away.
Heroes, poisoned by spears, Left,
On the approach track where their children had used to dance them home.
To moan shames and miseries.
And we, at home,
Roar to our giggling children.
Renew tales of our force that will not be withstood.
Give to our women
The hides and meat that will clothe and warm their feasting family futures.
And my Empress,
You take me,
The unchallenged chief,
Into our tomb safe lodge.
I Weep,
To you only,
For the hopes
And the cousins
I have mangled.
