War in the Labyrinth

The eye on manoeuvrres
Constructs a terrain,
A battleground of souls.
Is it true we can escape
From rooms full of knick-knacks,
The tyranny of hollow objects
And “good taste”?

Shall we return to ourselves in triumph,
Skeletons singing?
Mother Hell has borne another litter.

Look; a man, so tiny,
A frightened rabbit running,
Fleeing the earth’s upheaval,
Clinging to the ground,
Crying out to God,
Whom he suddenly believes in.

Wolfskinned, bearskinned,
Exiled from humankind,
The warriors, the neophytes,
Breathe fire.
Buried alive,
Speechless corpses,
They are heaved
Into a ditch.

Do we only dream them,
The unseen foe?
Men, like us,
Small, earth-coloured,
Startled from under rocks
And bushes.
On the edge
Of never-having-been,
We dwell in severance,
With severance to come.
Stripped of prideful skin,
Blindfolded,
Branded,
Maimed,
We make nowhere home.

The Ice Age crushes us
With glaciers.
Superstition slithers under the skin;
Rumour’s voodoo rides us.
Welcome to the trance.
Do you too wish to pledge your heart
To the pyre,
To be burned transparent?

Stuttering, mute,
The dismembered
Huddle, blindly staring,
In the hospital grounds,
Demonic spasms quaking
Their puppet bodies,
Their white-knuckled hands
Clenching nothing.

Blood of the slain
Runs off through the proper channels.
Horses turned to glue.
Someone somewhere
Lights a cigar.
And the loveless sleep in their own arms,
Unable to trust what they might reach.