Flags of Ruin (cheerful, huh?)

Flags of ruin hung on bearpoints,

driven screaming into the thorns,

tattered and cracking like ratty old flags caught,

like any old spook in the hawthorn caught,

damned with ears nailed open, always open

to the shreiks and howls of the wind, the stupid,

mindless, arrogant wind delighting in howling.

Silver trumpet notes wait there to die.

The bright souls of the green leaves weep and shudder,

offer water to one with a hole in his belly.

God never saves the right. All have died.

This rolling world takes us with it, regardless.

We are blind in the abyss, coughing in the dust.

The stars fine white threads too long exposed.

No true north, the Pole Star a whirly-gig out of control,

astrolabs, sextants, children thrown off.

No. When I die let me die among my own.

Not among these fat trees, howling winds,

water on its way to nowhere,

these green leaves without hands.