Sleeping from trees, mouths of graveyards wait
Low lying fruit idly by,
Pray for heaven’s door
Pale light, last sight
The hangman quivers
Snares
And gilded cages
Barons and conquerors, conquistadors salute
Bloody Marys hail
Missionary fervours gale
Pied Pipers wisp and drown
The children are framed
Raped and maimed
Hollow hearts defame
Never ending game
Maelstrom’s swirl
Pray for heaven’s furl
Lilly crumbles
Centurions stumble
Statues of stone
Ariana too
Prison guards cry, Auschwitz too
Chastised and scorned
The senses dull
Boabs and eucalypts mourn
Chastity and Dave
Suresh and Dolly
Michael and Ali
Bonnie no more
Susan and Aisha
Gallows decree
Pia and Steven
The Medes ensnare
Children of the sunrise, of the moon too
Some moons have many moons
Some have none
Birthright none, destiny laughs
Deliberation runs, sad eyes
Missionary times, society lies, Sharon and Drew
The civil service idles true blue
Crows bellow, colours and red
Children busy in suicide and dead
Protests and bywords
The gallows sword
Dare not hope, Orwell roars
Harry and Lizzie, Dana and Joe
Who’s next the cradle will sow
Dungeons and crevices, the fast slow
Too much to see, little to do
Praise heaped, nothing ado
Reginald gone, Sharon too
Bindiya and Dean, Thomas and Rose
Wickedness is fast, outrunning is hard
Silence and hue, worn out rude
Jesse smiled and Abby laughed
Jade, Saeed, Janine and Reggie
Prophets and profiteers, carpetbags full
Dominion brief, the ages sweep
What ifs and words
Not even rain and dew
Will gallows rot
And statues tumble?
Will the children play
And adults stay?
Will the Medes begone
And conquistadors no more?
Will playgrounds be full
And love with no bull?
Will protests convince
And the poets decide?
Will the speeches end
And babies grow old?
Lisa and Belinda
Kim and Mehmet
Lou and Tracy
All who warned
Heavy metal sands
Sceptics dance
Fate mourned
Sallow carts drawn
The Aardvark crows, Cockatoos howl
The Rooster talks, Lions squeal
Nothing makes sense, Sapiens and Arabian nights
Mouths of graveyards, pyres burn
Magazine lives deign
Warehouse piles reign
While minstrels equivocate
Slums intoxicate
A family walks the night
Comical eyes laugh
Servants climb, not left behind
To live out days
In audience or on stage
Scripts alive, festive lies
Theatre everywhere
Rogue grows old, holy
Pontificate and equivocate
Who cares, the wind blows
Arkady gone, Nikolas too
Suicide rains, prophets boo
Songs cry out deathly do
Cymbals and strings, bugles and trumpets
The waddle’s crawl
Birch and brawl
The bison mauls
Sad eyes, frown
Books and testaments whistle
The Sanhedrin thistles
Socrates and Jesus swear
They never were
Wails and dare
Sounds bare
Tables flare
Ten thousand mares
Kristy died
Yesterday lied
Did we fight or die?
Oracles tie, vagabonds scream
Decades dangle
Beggars bleat Odette’s cry
The chorus is dry
We bury in the mouths of graveyards the cradle’s eyes
Children of the sunrise
Of the unborn, none spared
Prison guards and servants fared
Some moons have many moons
Some have none
July and January thirty-one
The end is done
Mine eyes see
Mine ears hear
Please don’t go
Just die old
- Gerry Georgatos
