By A Stagnant Pool
A Mescherschmidt went down here, Snargate way,
Nosedived; it took twenty years to find, they say,
And the pilot identified by his disc;
Like the old Viking warrior with his rusty axe
Who staggered through the murky pool
Pierced from behind - he went down too.
So in this lavage of pigswill all was caked
And then digested in the earth;
The shouts and screams were lost,
The guts and spirit lost,
Only the oak still stands with its flaking moss
Wading in the water’s gaseous suck.
And the cause for which they fought
Was the same cause, unrecognised within,
The same description that there was something to protect.
The only winner was the ferryman
To the dead land,
And we, like them, on the same crutch,
We are going down too
But more slowly
And without heroics,
Without the same protective gods.
Page(s) 3
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