The towering candles of the monk’s studious hours
Now guttered to an old head on the pillowing smoke.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin bloated on the lawn
And the rat tails from his eye sockets engorged.
War is the end of all lore,
The bare abdomen of the Virgin Mary gutted for her son,
War is a prostitute’s mouldering arms,
The infidel to love, the mutilator of colors,
War is the broken feast of the heart,
Bones picked clean.