by Sean Henry.
Who kept watch here?
When the horn, brazen,
Broke the midnight air.
Signalling the coming of a storm;
A sea of bodies,
Boasting steel and mail
Broke like high tide on sandstone walls.
Amidst arrow falls
And spear and calls
Of fear and hate and anger.
Who kept watch here,
In the growing danger?
What prayers were said?
When leering dread; growing,
worked into the hearts and heads,
Of young men,
Just before they lie dead.
With buzzards swarming overhead,
Smelling flesh from bodies, bled.
That stained the turrets red.
And who mourned for them?
Whose praise was sung?
Whose spoils won,
Whose women raped as their murdered young,
Spilt blood into the burning sand and sun.
Till there was none.
Every enemy be hung,
By throat and innards run Into the mouth of one.
The unforgiving deserts tongue.
