Swords and spears lie on the field

  in homage to the fallen.

  A mournful cry is heard

  in the rain-softened air,

  a wail that is joined

  by a weeping chorus;

  The last choir has taken

  the stage,

  to sing a lament for humanity.

  They rise like frail stalks

  that tremble and falter

  in their despair,

  singing wilting, wordless songs

  before drifting like falling leaves,

  carried by rogue winds

  to the endless sea,

  forever lost

  in the storm and the surge.

  Eyes turn to the heavens

  to see the maddening tempest,

  the relentless thunder,

  the flash of lightning,

  and beyond it,

  a veil burned to gaze

  at the stars unimpeded,

  a world killed with smoke and ash,

  and we weep beneath

  a pall of heat and failed hopes

  We who remain

  offer a benediction

  to the dreams

  of silent and nameless destroyers

  slumbering in

  dust-grey cocoons

  that shivered,

  throbbing and bulging,

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  in the shifting shadow

  of the black ocean,

  and in their sleep

  they whisper dark nothings

  to the withering world.

  We remember yearning

  for more than this,

  pressed against

  this jagged wall of dreams

  on which we cut our probing fingers,

  searching for glittering

  hope, embedded in

  in the cold and the grey.

  But long ago,

  we watched our castles

  fall, mighty fortresses

  sinking beneath the waves,

  while a nameless city -

  a Bastion of Hope and Ideals

  vanished beyond a dream’s horizon,

  never to appear again.

  Now we think of days gone by,

  of an age, far removed from war:

  The Never-Time,

  filled with what-ifs

  and almost-theres,

  with might-have-beens

  and never-weres.

  The world ends

  and we remain,

  breathing smoke and

  choking on the ashes

  of our cremated brothers and sisters.

  The cocooned ones have begun to stir,

  awakened by our call,

  by our pleas

  to kill those who remain,

  seeking silence, seeking stillness,

  and an end to desperation.

  They've heard our prayer.

  We fall prone

  at the edge of the rising tide

  a pitiful thousand,

  all that remains,

  and we await their coming,

  hoping to be trampled underfoot,

  to have our blood and bones

  and memories

  beaten into the earth

  by the march of a godless legion.