Poem for March No. 2

Dooms Day 2016

They came in all directions, over sea and land, frightened

And aggressive, full of gentile rage, mostly on their own,

Some with families and in gangs.  The soldiers tightened

The cordon, laid out barbed-wire, pushed them bone

To bone, until the winter came, and a masquerade

Of snow, under which they buried their secrets and waited.

A thousand years of waiting clenched into this parade,

A dormant incursion in the guise of peace incubated

Down the avenues of sacred history: Charlemagne knew,

And Orlando furioso, what history needs are deeds

Of valour and self-sacrifice, not mew

And wallow, as when imbeciles follow creeds

Instead of facts, and lead the charge of bang and bump,

Onwards into the night until the final trump.