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.