without heroism
/ guards falling asleep
/ a blood sky down
a storm of falsehoods blowing in
/ thick gray vortices
/ & walls of unmeaning
long-clawed lightning strikes
/ the words terrified
/ clinging to a tree
/ wind lifted tossed up cast
into the air to be toyed with
/ an imperial death watch
/ the many twisting turns
until they wearied and gave up
/ how each fell one by one
/ naming in their tongues
the quaint villages they had come from