watching from a distance
the strangeness of their fate
their deaths put my life to shame
but we? do we feel ashamed?
are we ugly with grief?

honour me
savagely
a dead youth
a sacred fever
a chest still swollen with hope
feed these lands with dead men
we serve their cult in secret
our hearts are heavy
our sense of sin
from a distant impossible past
we sing the love of danger
of unconditional loyalty
of blind devotion?

this is not a time for silence