God of our fathers, what is man!
That thou towards him with hand so various…
Temper’st thy providence through his short cause

John Milton

---

Arthur’s Birth

The Cymry will be lamenting
While their souls will be tried
Before a horde of ravagers
Taliesin

Cupbearer! Come & fill these horns of mead
& toast our eager vessels for the song,
Adorn our thought with helmet, spur & steed
& charge with us along the first furlong;
Romanitas
Thro’ Britain has collaps’d,
The cause calamitous, Barbarian relapse.

With Henghist came the Saxon stock
That is forever England,
The Britons suffer such crude shock
Both Pendragons understand,
This weather-change wears to the rock
The soil of this fair land –
Best fields them yielding year-on-bloody-year,
Yearning for some messiah to appear.

Such wishes Heaven understood
As to Tintagel drew
A force for good, rich Pictish blood
Wee babelet courses thro,’
Of lovers’ born in moonlit tryst, when kisses taste of dew!

Cornwall
478

---

Arthur the Warrior

Legend has it
That within the chalice
Was an elixir of courage
Kimolisa Mings

Burning with the Caracallan edict,
Lamenting how his motherlands were torn,
Soulsent to show each Saxon, Scot & the Pict
The purpose & the reason he was born;
Our young hot-head
Ascending thro’ the ranks,
Prays nightly by his bed, sending sweet Christus thanks!

King Erbin was his mortal lord,
Master of all the Cornish,
Whose princely son, to wide concord
Did courtly throne embellish,
A noble youth, of horse & sword
& farer over fish,
Who loves to hear a wise moralitee,
Who with bold Arthur made an amity.

Whose genius Geraint respects,
Generalsy overawes,
Whose mind accepts choice Latin texts
Still extant on these shores,
Sensing his Britons shall, one day, return to Roman laws.

Dumnonia
498

---

Llongborth

a dagger in my hand & him beneath me:
I’d show it could go in deeply,
the blood of his head about his bollocks
Ailean Mor

Across the mane men came expecting gain;
Old Porta & his two haranguing sons
Have landed at the exit of the Glein,
Thro’ which Winchester’s succinct precint runs;
By rivermouth,
Portchester, massive, stands,
Best harbour of the south… the Saxon tiger lands.

Ride on, Geraint, thy charger swift,
Galloping ‘neath thumping thigh,
Ye over swords & swordsmen lift
Like a lion leaping high,
The Saxons silenc’d with short thrift,
Until your time to die,
A tragedy lamented by thy King,
This victory no succour to the sting!

Arthur now Erbin’s ‘special one,’
The Camelots agree,
Without a son the crown to don
An Empire promised he,
“But first, my boy, make pilgrimage to Mary over sea!”

Celliwig
501

---

Byzantium

The Cross is gleaming in the sky,
The Word, by whom all flesh was made,
Himself made flesh is there displayed
Venantius Fortunatus

Far beyond the seafaring Taphians
Sail’d Arthur to the city Constantine,
A world of most wonderful aliens,
The neutron of the atom Byzantine;
The meeting’s grant,
The palace glorious!
Here sprawl all sycophant for Anastasius.

”Hello thou half-Herulian,
My city bids thee welcome,
We await the restoration,
Imperium Romanum,
Thou art the last free bastion
Against the hated drum
That rattl’d down the very Roman walls
& beat its rhythm into Gallic halls.”

The Emperor did Arthur kiss,
Embrac’d him as a son,
”Remember this, in thy service,
Until armageddon,
Thou art our e’erlasting, incontestable possession!”

Constantinople
504

---

Pilgrimage

Dear Christ, who reign’st above the flood
Of human tears & human blood,
A weary road these men have trod
F.G. Scott

Now runs the sacred circuit of his life,
At Ephesus the Mother’s twilight grange,
At Acre he ‘estranged’ a Hittite knife
Some future Saxon face to re-arrange;
Jerusalem
Appears in waking dreams,
“Him born in Bethlehem our sinning here redeems…”

He whisper’d as he made his way
To the vale Jehosophat,
Where Christus Judas didst betray
(& the world grew glad of that),
Three days & nights would Arthur pray,
Couch’d on a rushy mat,
Beseeching Father, Son & Holy Ghost
For victories over the heathen host.

On the fourteenth of September,
He on the cross did gaze,
That Helena, sacred mother
Of Constantine, did raise
From all the world’s obscurity, to worship & amaze!

Jerusalem
505

---

Holding the Saxons

To my true king I offered free from stain
Courage & faith ; vain faith & courage vain.
For him I threw lands, honours, wealth, away
Lord Macaulay

A man he went, Guledig he return’d,
Finds Cerdic & his sons growing most bold,
How many homesteads to their fury burn’d,
How many sights did sorry eyes behold;
“Upon Dubglas!”
Urg’d he, “We’ll hold ’em here!
Not one of them shall pass, or better still draw near!”

As the river was his border
There an inch he never gave,
Fighting battles in good order,
Mettle tests Orestes-brave,
Each battle’s night he pour’d a
Libation for the grave
Of Geraint, still alive inside his blade –
Until onslaughting Saxon forces fade.

King Erbin granted Arthur leave
To seize himself good lands,
“Son, to achieve this feat believe
Men’s fate lies in men’s hands;”
“My Lord,” said Arthur, kneeling, as decorum’s lilt demands.

South Cadbury
506

---

Bassas

I won’t be long, she said
& left the door ajar.
It was special evening for us
Georgi Gospodinov

All thro’ the hearth-lands of the Cornovii
March’d Arthur, by the River Bassas side,
Beyond the town where Princes go to die
A hill-top fort his smaller force defied;
Caer Ogyfran
By fading giant ruled,
A weary, dying man – friendless & easy-fool’d.

Aggression to attack attach’d,
’Twas a conquest farly-famed,
Tall walls might well be made from thatch
As its towers easy tamed,
Lord Arthur knows no earthly match,
All Powys there he claim’d,
When for the brutal theft to legalize
He took a local princess as a prize.

Stepping into her private room
Where shadows darkling fell,
All thro’ the gloom rose such perfume,
Like blooming asphodel,
When Arthur gazed on Guinevere his heart burst from its shell!

Powys
507

---

Camelot

Ten different kinds of birds I have identified
By their calls & songs as we sit here
Under a darkening sky of June, drinking our wine
John Heath-Stubbs

Lord Arthur made a tour of new lands won,
Finding a ruin’d Roman city there,
But not so rough, & when the tough work done
His capital grew famous everywhere;
A noble court
To serve a nobler king,
A place for days of sport & nights of lovemaking!

As labia his lips enclose,
Like lillies kiss a river,
Her goblet-naval’d belly rose
Like aspens all a-shiver
On mountain winds; she curls her toes,
Thanks her pleasure giver,
His touch to her was ointment pouring forth
Upon strawberries wilding in the North.

Now comes his love, love caliph-fierce,
Love quick’ning blow-by-blow,
Broad blade thrusts pierce, he raids her ears,
As serendip, in tow,
Draws tantric, velvet magic thro’ heroic libido.

Virocolum
507

---

Lancelot & Guinevere

Sae, in my heid as birdsang
Faas throu simmer treen
Is the thocht o my luve
Sydney Goodsir Smith

A marriage of remembrance, & the dance!
Him stag & she a panther, as they tore
Across the merrie courtyard, such romance
Has never since been seen, or seen before;
From Delilah
Stroking brave Samson’s head,
To Julius Ceasar in Cleopatra’s bed.

Alas, as Ceasar soon replaced
By his ‘friend’ Mark Anthony,
Queen Guinevere was daily faced
By a young knight in her e’e,
Whose peach-soft lips she long’d to taste,
An Absalon was he,
& in his dreams he, too, spent nights with her,
Broken by morning’s birdsong’s warning burr.

Feigning distance nonchalantly
They knew it in their core,
As wifely she a family
To Arthur’s bloodline bore,
She wish’d that good Sir Lancelot was hers for evermore.

Castle Knucklas
509

Let the man ascribe it to his skill
That through grace hath attain’d the victory

Edmund Spenser

---

The Battle of Guinnion

Oh, you, warriors,
For the people, be the vanguard.
Without resting day or night
Dài Jìtáo

As druid’s epics never write themselves,
For to avenge the exile of King Caw,
Against King Drustan’s pack of Pictish Elves
& Scots of Domnagairt, shall Arthur war;
His Gorsgodd rides,
Three hundred nobles strong,
Upon those restless tides which elevate this song.

Battle dissolves idyllic glen
Underneath Garanwynyon,
Faith vitalising souls of men
For the Mother of the Son
Likeness’d on Arthur’s shield – the ten
Witches of Albion
Hill-fled for safety, with a banshee shout,
Shedding  Wodenic forces as they rout.

“Let’s build a church to Mary here
& praise her for this day –
In strife & fear ghouls disappear
Before the righteous way,
Come soldiers, my brave soldiers, kneel beside & let us pray!”

Stow-on-Wedale
509

---

Lothian

We are ready to die, if it is necessary,
die so that our country will live!
This our blood in our veins urges us.
Mustafa Sadiq Al-Rafi’i

The golden belt once worn by Cunedda
Wash’d clean of Pictish blood before the ford
Where slaughter had turn’d the waters redder;
Along the Gala Water Arthur rode,
Thro’ Peht-land hills,
His gallant armament,
Beneath the rushing rills, in hush’d procession went.

Seeing a craggy citadel
Claim landscape surrounding,
He gave an all almighty yell,
Its echoes wide resounding,
This was a promise born in hell
But borne on angel wings;
“We are number’d, here, but three hundred horse –
Let us return one day with greater force.”

That night they slept in the old wrack
Where Serverus made camp,
Plans of attack, with martial knack,
He made by oily lamp
Stuffing the scrolls in saddle-sacks, safe from the mist & damp.

Caramago
509

---

Caledon Wood

Life is all a road of danger,
Man, therein, a passing stranger
Hastening onward to the grave
Alain de L’Isle

Slowly thro’ the Silva Caledonis
The plodding Gorsgodd goes, the capital
Of Southern Pictland nears & the promise
That there, they would prove themselves in battle;
Shrieks stiffen spine,
Bursting woodland races,
Sword-studded battle-line, blue woad-cover’d faces.

From his fortress at Kirkbuddo
Drustan sallies forth to die,
His soldiers all selvaggio,
But however hard they try
They cannot halt the fury-flow
Of Arthur sent from high,
Whose bold decapitations toss a crown
To dryad earth, its subjects looking down.

Drustan dug out from bleeding mound
Of lower brethren dead,
A better ground for him was found
Buried beside his head,
Beneath an ornate tombstone carved to mark a royal bed.

Liddesdale
509

---

Pict-Slayer

And joy is mine
When the castles strong, besieged, shake,
And walls uprooted totter and crack
Bertran de Born

Come raise a toast for kings of Northern wars,
Whose bloody corpses rain-ice washes clean,
Where Hueil, perdifious son of Caw’s,
Holds old Alt Clud, tough key to his demense;
“A gorsgodd comes!”
“Then here its ride shall end –
Come sound the battledrums, come let the lines extend.”

Our destines are as the sun
Which rises at the dawning,
Unstoppable, once we’ve begun
Our progress through life’s morning:
When only half the day is done,
Sudden, without warning,
We find our brightest face begin to fade
The death-mask of a midnight’s masquerade.

Not yet, tho’ Arthur, noble knight,
Another victory,
Picts press in fright from this great might,
For safer places flee,
With Hueil’s head thrust on a spike for every king to see.

Dumbarton
510

---

Return to Camelot

Forever shall I feel thy velvet hair
Dark & majestic on my hot face stream
& two lives flowing on as in a dream
Salvator Gauci

With old fashion’d lyrical loveliness,
Arthur embrac’d his queen on his return,
Tearing apart her flimsy floral dress,
He took her with the vernal heart of Herne;
That night she crept
To warm Sir Lancelot,
& as her husband slept undid their bridal knot.

A message with the morning sun,
“The ranks of the Irish close
On the City of the Legion,”
Arthur notic’d as he rose
He was alone, but wars are won,
When focus’d, “We oppose
This threat encroaching slowly from the West –
Fetch me my sword, my steed, my steely vest!”

The Gorsgodd was assembl’d sharp
As sheepish Guinevere
Grabs nearest harp, her man did carp,
“O where were you, my dear?”
“My love I’ve writ a song for thee, beneath the bracken bier.”

Virucolum
511

---

The City of the Legion

Halo-winged like a rood,
Christ’s heart in its heart set,
Streaming with blood
Seosamh mac Cathmhaoil

Brychan of Brecon bares his Irish chest,
Joining his brothers moving to the south,
Those showy swordsmen of the outer west
Heading for Severn waters & its mouth;
The wall is reach’d
Of sinew, steel & shield,
A wall that must be breach’d, Brythonic battlefield.

Tho’ Arthur’s forces were a tenth
Of all that the Gaels would raise,
He burst on them with skilful strength
Like bezerker’s in a craze,
The Irish line a log of length
Placed on a campfire blaze
Whose centre snaps when faced with so much heat –
With that shouts rise of desperate defeat.

Those wild, half-naked Gaelsmen fled,
King Arthur stops pursuit,
Buries his dead, broke bread & said
“We wait,” being astute,
“For help from far Byzantium, the balance too acute.”

Caerleon
511

---

Tribuit

In gusting wind
short-stemmed plants shudder and tremble
yet no one pays attention
Kim Sa-In

Thro’ common enemy & common aim,
A soldier sent by Anastasius,
Admiral Theodoric was his name,
To bolster this holy war of Arthur’s;
Flinging dogs home,
Sons of pagan bitches,
Then triumph back to Rome, clutching hard-won riches.

Lord Arthur wash’d his hands & feet
At the altar of Llandaff,
Then march’d his men beside the sweet
Rushwaters of plumelike Taff,
To where three rushing rivers meet
There plung’d in soil his staff,
Defiant as onrush’d the enemy,
The still-point of a turning world stood he.

Thro’ hack & slice, thro’ steam & spurt,
He thrust a bloody track,
Mind full alert, immune to hurt,
He push’d the Irish back,
Back to their boats, dismember’d goats, divided, brooding, black.

Cardiff Bay
512

---

Love & Lust

This war!
I am tired
of a husband who never sleeps
Chenjerai Hove

More regions yield to Arthur’s sceptre-sway,
Saint Dyfig crowns him king ‘neath Llandaff spire,
The Cymry all united in a day,
Happy partners in a happy empire;
Thro’ giftery,
Perstoic shows of force,
& gentle foe-amis, his reign shall run long course.

Young Medrawt gambols round the court,
Arthur his foster father,
Scribes sacred scriptures daily taught
But this young scamp would rather
Practice at sword-play, well he fought
Other boys much older
& slaying one he pleaded innocent,
“Twas accident!” Medrawt knew different.

He wander’d into mountain hush,
Out collecting spiders,
The gasp… groan… gush…. of lovers rush
Spying naked riders,
The loins of Lancelot enqueen’d, squeezing apple ciders.

Powys
514

---

The Death of Lancelot

Oh what pain it is to part !
Can I leave thee, can I leave thee ?
O what pain it is to part
John Gay

Things said on the road are heard in the grass,
King Arthur broods upon his rough disgrace,
“Such scandal here shall never come to pass
& of this deep betrayal leave no trace…
But first I must…
Must I? Yes, I must see
Her breasts of devil lust, her nest of treachery.”

The next time Guinevere steps took
On love’s illicit meeting,
Follow’d was she out to that nook
By yew trees & ewe bleating,
There gave she Lancelot that look
Ah! twas all too fleeting,
As Arthur watch’d on, face as grey as ash,
The lovers were arrested in a flash.

In agonies his best knight died,
Whose blood did gloop & gush,
“Come back to bed, naught shall be said,
Died, he, in an ambush,
& shall be buried hon’rably…” Her hopes! Her heart! Her crush!

Powys
514

Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire – conscience
George Washington

---

The Call of Caledon

And I remembered drowsily,
How ‘mid the hills last night I’d lain
Beside a singing moorland burn
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Pray seasons pass in peace, when bravest knights
Take peradventures seeking Holy Grails,
’Til all cut short, like Magpies in the nest,
The Picts are coming back like ghouls on gales;
“Dumbarton’s fall
Must change with no delay,”
Says Arthur, “Once, for all, this wingless dragon slay.”

Endonning his old shirt of mail
He led the loyal Cymri,
Back northwards, at Stow-on-Wedale
To the Mother’s reliqury
All pray’d, through Peht-land vales made trail,
When over Albany;
Perch’d like an all-pervading mountain stag,
The Maiden Castle hung aslant the crag.

A mile away he pitch’d up camp,
On auld volcano falls,
Into the damp, beneath a lamp
A faded scroll unrolls,
‘We strike the castle at those points where lowest fall the walls.’

Dunsapie Hill
516

---

The Battle of Mount Agned

and man will plunge knives –
into human flesh –
stabbing and stabbing
Esther Raab

The game is on, the roaring army storms,
Trident-wielding-Neptune thrice divided,
As such a restless force of violence forms
Victory was in one charge decided;
Out spurts the blood
Which Fate ordains to pour,
Such gamble understood by all who gain from war.

Far from the warm heat of the hall
& family to dote on,
Still thick in battle, strong & tall,
King Arthur’s belly caught one…
But, indomitable in soul,
Baderean fought on,
Sensing his zenith, moments such as these
As when a poet first Parnassus sees.

“We have no time for prisoners
& less for weans & wives,
Cruel business, inglorious,
Tho’ Lord God gave us lives
These scum Satanic pagans, make sure not a child survives.”

Edina
516

---

The Round Table

Here on Earth we must live upright.
Exile is agony, pain and blight.
Nobody returns once they are gone
Yunus Emre

Up to that wide & scenic tidal mouth
Which Clyde feeds fairly from the Alban hills,
The Celtic men are marching east & south.
In them their king a mighty strength instils;
That vital dish
Of posipraxis pure
Dismisses all anguish & trepidations cure.

As when the warbling bott fly bug
Penetrates the healthy flock,
They, silent, reach’d that double plug
Of volcanic, pointing rock,
“Those slimy slugs, asleep, asnug,
Are in for quite a shock
Prepare the men to go at Dawn’s first light,
But first I needs must speak with every knight.”

That close-knit crew did form a crowd
Round Arthur, in a ring,
Puff’d up & proud, uncouth, uncow’d
Strengths to the Table bring,
Men like sirs Kai & Bedevere, who serv’d no better king.

Strathclyde
517

---

The Battle of Mount Badon

The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring & hesitating
hunting for the final curve
William Stafford

As when one eats one’s breakfast in the park
& pities with bread a little pigeon,
Whose keen-eyed cousins, set off at the spark,
Instantly surround us as a legion;
Kai’s kindred pour
About Sir Bedevere,
Who’d broken down the door with battle-axe & spear.

The sun had not yet took his throne,
With golden paint applying,
Before hot blood & blocks of bone
Sent through the battle flying,
A battle done in early morn,
Hundreds dead & dying,
A thousand prisoners, all in a line
Of Picts, depress’d, the dragon’s limping spine.

King Arthur drew his Hittite blade
& cut a thousand throats,
While Clerics prayed, as Delphi made
Blood sacrifice of goats,
To please the gods, to please HIS god, to hell each shade demotes.

Lammer Law
517

---

The Rot of Guinevere

Brittle beauty that Nature made so frail,
Whereof the gift is small, & short the season,
Flowering today, tomorrow apt to fail
Henry Howard

As when one sits in the dip of great hills
Then sees an early setting of the sun,
As when descends the shadows & the chills,
Eyes ride along the peaks, whose highest one;
Still struck with gold,
A titan in the sky,
This peak, then, Arthur, bold, his foes shall terrify!

His name is feted everywhere,
At each utterance a cheer,
His famous feasts were more a fair,
Frivolous & full of beer,
But… one turns sour, from her own chair
Mordred drags Guinevere,
For she had sleighted him, she’d diss’d his youth,
Forgetting that he knew her sordid truth.

“How dare you wench, think ill of me,
When ye hath stoop’d so low –
Now I shall be thine enemy,”
Pipes Arthur, “So, son, go,
Before love’s angers steal my mind to deal thy mortal blow.”

Celliwig
535

---

The Rot of Medrawt

I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall
Edna St. Vincent Millay

As when one’s cap blocks out the cloudless sun,
But ‘neath the peak its reflection shimmers
On mirror’d waves, & eyes, now unopen,
Fill with orange light in rapid glimmers;
When dangers hoard,
Signs seen on every side,
Alas by minds ignored ballooning with ill pride.

King Arthur reign’d nigh twenty years
Within his mighty bubble,
Dishearing Guinevere’s sad tears
For true love under rubble,
So when the grave crisis appears
Arthur sens’d no trouble,
But as to dust all creatures must return,
Trust enmities & rivalries to burn.

Now is the chance, Medrawt, the worm,
Meets land-hungry Angles,
”Force strong & firm must end the term
Of his constant wrangles –
Then with his death see how swift ties of loyalties untangles!”

Bernicia
536

---

The Battle of Camlann

The bull, conversing with nature.
Moves off into the meadow,
White horns planted
Nikolai Alekseevich Zabolotsky

The best part of two hundred thousand men
Have come to share this dreich & dreary space,
A floating moor above Dunnichen glen,
The hunter & the hunted at the chase;
Weakening eyes
Dividing men three-fold,
“Sire, is that very wise?” “Sir Kai, do as ye’re told.”

Young Merlin sat above the scene
From Rheged he had wandered,
At bardic school, barely nineteen,
On poetry had ponder’d,
Oer murder ghastly & obscene
Somebody had blunder’d,
For Arthur was failing his final test,
This mad, dim, weird, grim battle of the West.

Mordred espies his ‘family,’
His heart-beat scenting blood,
Cross combat he, bearbeitely,
Ghosted beneath his hood,
Then shook a knife thro’ Arthur’s ribs & dropp’d him where he stood.

Dunnichen
537

---

The Death of Arthur

Then say, as his divine embrace
Destroys the mortal parts of you
I too am of that royal race
A.D. Hope

What good a kingdom when a life force fades?
What use are riches when your end is near?
What help is power when we join the shades?
What use remorse when one can shed no tear?
Death, dark & dread,
Lay cold bones upon him,
So very nearly dead, light winch’d in ever dim.

As gravity dictates our end,
When precipices crumble,
”Sir Bedevere,” he gasp’d, “Old friend,”
Throat horsey, hoar & humble,
”My blade with thee I do intend,
Do not fudge or fumble,
But in that lake o’er there it ye must throw,
Never let it be clutch’d by Saxon foe.

For while it stays unhidden there
Our souls they shall not rule…”
A gulp of air, an angel stare,
Beard spittl’d in red-drool,
King Arthur dies, his famous blade lobb’d in that flaming pool

Inchyra
537

---

Arthur the Legend

And don’t worry about your lineage
poetic or natural. The Sun shines on
the jungle, you know, on the tundra
Frank O’Hara

The blood-red western dulls the day of charms,
Across this charr’d & melancholy waste
Of sever’d heads cradl’d by lopp’d-off arms,
The dead are heap’d up in a scowling haste;
These cairns of stones
Shall hide the rotting scent
Of flesh dripping from bones… legs broken, sprawl’d & bent.

King Arthur’s corpse a better grave
On the isle of apples found,
Morgan le Fay her brother gave
A fair sleep, tho’ in the mound
Him still the bravest of the brave,
Whose legends long shall sound –
Sarcophagus forgotten by the Celt
As safe, to western mountains, they woulld melt,

Where wide across the mighty vale
Of vast eternity,
Oer neaps & ale they’ll tell a tayle
Of ancyent chivalry
Of how a bastard’s fist bested Henghists’ hegemony!

Britain
540

The battles may last for a long time, perhaps even years. There are powerful forces on both sides, & the war is important to both armies. Its not a battle of good against evil. Its a war between forces that are fighting for the balance of power, &, when that type of battle begins, it lasts longer than others – because Allah is on both sides.

Paulo Coelho

---

Byzantium

March to the battle-field,
The foe is now before us ;
Each heart is freedom’s shield
B.E. O’Meara

As love grants star-struck maids immortal youth
When poets pluck a pen, & from two hearts
Syphon the breadth of beauty, bears its truth,
Pouring an airy music thro the parts;
The Roman East
Constantinoples keep,
Its legions far releas’d once more the West to reap!

This was a golden age for Greece
& the ghosts of Pericles,
When freedom from Latin release
Fuels philosophic degrees,
When old Aegean swims in peace,
& empire overseas
A flying rival of that classic past –
Alas! Justinian must breathe his last.

The tough offspring of each bear-skin
Which laid the world once low,
Round Aetna spin, them Rome rewin,
Back-wresting Cathargo,
From lion’s lairs force legionaires & push them from the Po.

Europe
580

---

Christianitas

I took his dripping corpse upon
my dolphin back & reached the strand;
the beast played saviour to the man
Antiphilus of Byzantium

Along road-ruin the Vicar of Christ
Treads patiently until God leads him home
To this derelict bastion, enticed
Thro’ silted squares, by jilted walls of Rome;
In this sweet place,
A cult of saints begun,
Spreads penitence thro’ grace for murdering His son.

Agents leave that angel centre,
Wielding the growing gospel,
Some reaching Franks of Lutetia
(They’d won that town thro’ battle),
Others harry Hibernia
& serpentrie dispel,
Some preach alone along the Pictish shore –
Light-beacons of Iona & Lismore.

Christ may claim the wild, wild Britons,
But Britain torn in twain –
Fearless Saxons, peerless pagans,
O’er-run the Celtic plain,
Until Augustine mounts the cross in Aethelbert’s domain.

Kent
597

---

Islamica

Even the flowers greet you as of old;
Then you may well divine in what degree
My heart has already welcome for my friend
Kokin Shu

In pagan Mecca was man-mountain born,
Thro’ meditations in the Hiran cave,
From Heaven’s will Qu’ranic verses shorn,
But shunn’d from town with condescending wave;
Old Medina,
His righteousness perceiv’d,
”Those who pray to Allah by Paradise reciev’d.”

While Meccanese rode to rid
The deserts of its prophet,
Defensive actions made valid
By visions of Mahomet,
Them for a decade far outdid
All rivals threat-by-threat,
& with an empire flowing far & wide
Islam’s first Imam, cleans’d, at Khaibar died.

Those men who tasted the divine
Holler up a sandstorm,
Drive Byzantine from Palestine,
Damascus made their home,
As from the holy city all the papists whipp’d to Rome.

Jerusalem
638

---

Nippon

You had a land in the age of darkness
unused to suicide or traffic
and its prayer-wheels turned like the sun
Mark Abley

As Allah & Jehova have enchased
The Western World with civilising light,
The presence of the Buddha, bubble-faced,
Enthus’d with life this Chinese satellite;
Ascends Nippon!
Thine emperor, Jimnu
Descended from the sun-god Amaterasu.

Spirit shelter’d by Shinto shields,
Poise proud as sitting vulture,
Peasantry working paddy-fields
Plant rice crops for the future,
Clan-unity & kingship brings
Long seed-times of culture,
When scatter’d settlements conflate & flow
Into an oriental Jericho.

The apple-blossom Japanese
Map out their first city,
Progressive breeze, royal decrees
Admitting monast’ry
& university to study keen-carv’d Koyiki.

Nara
710

---

March of Islam

In a seaside desert port
that wasn’t yet a city
our grandfather built a wide house
Anjuli Fatima Raza Kolb

An endless swirl of eternal Jihad
Sworn duty in the prophet’s sacred name,
Demeaning every other worship bad,
“Serve Allah or consumed be by hell flame!”
As warring ants
Invade the termites’ nest
Islamic olliphants, blown north, south, east & west,

Trade routes galloping thro’ Persia,
Reach Kabul & Samarkand,
Filling the Nile’s fertile delta,
Spilling blood on Tunis sand,
Fleets launching from North Africa
Towards the Promised Land –
An earthly paradise of golden grain –
The Saracens are spreading into Spain.

A city built of pretty bricks
All culture thro’ it flows;
Grecian classics, Med’cine, physics,
Chess pieces, sweeter prose
& Methavita’s mosque of pillars mass’d in classy rows.

Cordoba
751

---

Monjoie!

his patronage maintains every poet group:
in his palace drinking is no dream
for his great thronging generous troops
Niall Mor

Great Charlemagne has claim’d the Frankish throne,,
The Seat of Christ is his to long sustain,
His blows prodigious yonder Rhine & Rhone,
Brings empire bustling to his sapphire train;
Firm by his side
Valiant Count Roland,
First lion of the pride, Durendal in his hand.

Great Charlemagne a palm’s breadth drew
His sword, Joyeux, for glory,
Nobles from Normandy, Poitou,
Maine, Gascony, Picardie,
Tourain, Flanders, Guyeme, Anjou,
& pretty Brittany,
Traverse the ancyent vales of Ronceveaux,
Spain’s delitescent leagues searing below.

Such a battle is upon us,
Twyx Christian & Moor,
When beauteous Spanish passes
Turn wretched scenes of war,
When fell’d knights, decomposing, food for slugs & nuzzling boar.

Pyrynnees
778

---

Chansons du Roland

In the distance a star was absorbing
my tiredness, and itself heading like a pilgrim
towards you, leaving blank its place in the heavens
Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

For France must father Carolinga fly,
Roland commands his rear-guard curtle axe,
This is a day on which brave men must die
As stuttering to the stunning climax
Swarm’d pagans flow,
“Count Roland blow thy horn!”
“Such act would shame me so, we face the foe alone!”

They fought among the dull-hued stones,
Dragon facing Oriflame,
When many splint’ring emir bones
Knew, briefly, Durendal’s name,
The field a symphony of moans,
Winning eternal fame
Only the master of the Franks still stands,
Seizing his oliphant with slimy hands…

Riffs of haunting thunders resound
For fifty leagues or more,
Charles turns around… the battleground
A charnel-house of gore,
That forms the ghostly frontier of a long, religious war.

Ronceveaux
778

---

Carolingia

The birth canal is yours
Either to open or to close.
Open it you must, dear elders
Hermana Ramarui

On Christmas Day was crown’d great Charlemagne;
King-conqueror, far from his cradle-birth,
He rais’d a triumph in a Caesar’s train,
His armies birds in sky & trees on earth;
Holy empire
On pagan planet won,
From whom his seed shall sire a perfect, spotless son.

This pious Louis took a wife,
All the Angels deem’d her good,
These conjuring more regal life
Protected the sacred blood,
Each wise as Rome, each fair as Fife,
Each strong as Flemish wood,
Each gather’d by their father’s dying bed –
He drew them close & choking phlegma said,

“None of ye shall be Emporer,
But each a realm shall reign;
Italia, Germania,
The Franks & Aquitaine…”
Friction on such division stood, fought out on blood-fraught plain.

Aachen
843

---

Vikings

Then twice six followers from the board
Rushed forth with fierce delight;
They whirled the club, they waved the sword
Esaias Tegnér

Those crow-dark, horse-swift, norse-driven dragons,
Bow-keen, wave-cleaving, crossing western sea,
Quaffing culdee blood from frothing flagons,
Fill Albyn coast with hosts of empery;
Highlands, islands,
New-found Norwegian fjord;
Neutralized thro’ violence – mace, battleaxe & sword.

Those realms bezerker thrust its span,
Entrusted to gods of war,
Yon Lindisfarne, the Isle of Man,
& along the Pictish shore,
Raising a gaze on Aethalstan,
Blood-eagles to the fore,
As days of village pillaging are pass’d,
These traders now intend a raid to last,

Blades rampage thro’ Northumbria,
Roar down the Watling Street,
East Anglia & Mercia
Low-wittl’d with defeat –
How long afore these Saxon Kings are conquer’d, too, complete?

Sanctae Eadmundestow
880

Riding swiftly, Minaya Alvar Fanez kill’d thirty-four Moors with his sharp sword; his arm was stain’d with the blood dripping down to his elbow

The Poem of ‘The Cid’

---

Alfred

It may be glorious to write
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come to sight
James Russel Lowell

Only the lords of Wessex dare defy
The victual flamboyance of the Vikings,
“Are we not Saxons?” rings a captain’s cry,
The morning chorus of the English kings;
As great a man
As ever was Pompey,
Driving his battle-plan along the old Ridgeway.

They met the Norsemen on the hill
Life’s liberties to defend,
A moment making time stand still,
Immortalies suspend –
Britain some Nordic overspill
Or war-heroic blend?
The Saxons tough the better of the fight
The Ravens breaking cloth are put to flight.

Upsrings a worthy capital
Laws writ in native tongue,
The chronicle of his struggle
Preserv’d in prose & song,
Then marries into Mercia to make his nation strong.

Winchester
892

---

Holy Roman Empire

While Rome could none esteem
But virtue’s patriot theme
You loved her hills, & led her laureat band
William Collins

Distant princes court Alfred’s grand-daughters,
Enchaunted by their dancing beauty’s youth;
Perfect as pearl, skin soft as spring-waters,
Souls hankering for virtue-verdur’d truth;
King Otho’s bride,
Edgitha, shares his reign,
Her Saxon blood allied with sacred Charlemagne.

“How yearnst I,” sighs the emperor,
“For to unite Germany,
Bind beautiful Bavaria
To blueberry Lombardy
Blend heather-scented Swabia
With sunny Saxony –
Administ’ring, with best Papal consent,
The central portions of this continent.”

Arose a sense of nationhood
Tied by Teutonic tongue,
In hall & wood, those tayles of blood,
The Niebelungen song,
Stirr’d up a spirit which the soul of Seigried soar’d among.

Germania
962

---

The Rise of Paris

The city’s all a-shining
Beneath a fickle sun,
A gay young wind’s a-blowing
Sara Teasdale

Long since the notion struck the Parisii
To settle by the Seine, & since sublime
Lutetia prais’d each Ceasar’s victory,
This eagle’s nest amidst the mists of time
Claims Frankish throne,
As jangling jongleurs sing,
“One of our very own has been elected king!“

How many noble knights advance
Gorgeous daughters for the bride
Of Hugh Capet, the first in France,
His Parisians felt pride,
But only one lass stood a chance
As once again allied,
The blood of Charlemagne & Alfred merge,
One wedding night, abed, with mighty spurge.

“So this is life!” the pilgrim said
Upon the paths to Spain,
Those slowly tread, with fruit & bread,
Those roads thro’ Aquitaine
Upon the route… the valorous, the vocal & the vain.

France
990

---

Taking the Cross

Look on Her Enemies, on their Godly Lyes,
Their Holy Perjuries,
Their Curs’d encrease of much ill gotten wealth
William Cartwright

From the Praetendarius of Llanfair
To the old Thesaurarius of Lille,
It seems Pope Urban’s essence moves thro’ air,
It prospers thro’ the priesthoods, keen with zeal;
Christ’s foremost knight
Tours Europe’s fidget thrones,
“Those Muslims must we fight!” rouses convictive tones.

“My brave, young hawks, open thy mind
To Heaven & His glories,
Thy quadrivium leave behind
Renege thine earthly follies,
With my bold guard of falcons bind,
Mutatis Mutandis!
Jerusalem is grieving for our grace
To free her from the Saracen embrace.”

Redemption calls, tempted afar,
Men bend on steely knee,
’Neath sacred star them bless’d, them are
The Crucesignati!
Those continental cavaliers of Christianity!

Claremont
1095

---

Crusaders

Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrow
A big tear wandering in the eye
Who will halt the aggression
Nizar Qabbani

Impulse grown gory thro’ all Christendom,
“God wills it!” uproars the monks of Cluny,
Most voiciferous van against Islam,
Cause focus’d by Henry of Burgandy;
His brimming ships
Batter the Biscay bay…
Men land, what fervour grips these battles fought today.

As raiding parties ebb & flow
Twyx Braga & Toledo,
Reclaims, Henry, the Duoro
&, unnoposed, Oporto,
For mile-on-mile, from grand Minho
To moor-like Mondego,
Portugal is awaking, native lands
Return like saint-stigmata to the hands.

News permeates the Prophet’s world
Of this Hispanic loss,
Banners unfurl’d, blasphemies hurl’d,
As Cresent curses Cross,
Soon bloody pools must soak’d up be by spongey mountain moss.

Palestine
1097

---

The First Crusade

Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just :
Shining nowehere but in the dark ;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust
Henry Vaughan

One hundred thousand claim a crucifix,
& gallop to the Gallilean hills,
All them but pawns of Papal politics,
With swords & lances, sleek dipteran quills;
A spirit shield,
Of sweet death deified,
From holy battlefields souls rise on sacred tide.

At last they capture Antioch,
Long siege of land & water,
Infidels fighting rock-by-rock,
Apocalyptic slaughter!
Depleting, daily, human stock –
War’s terminal quota;
Infernal, body-mangl’d battlefield,
Where flat hymns mingl’d as the singing peel’d.

From miracle to miracle
The city stood no chance,
A gritty yell, the citadel
To libbards, fell, of France,
Lungs bellowing, “Avanti!” “Adelante!” & “Advance!”

Jerusalem
1099

---

The Second Crusade

Praise Him, all creatures here below
Praise Him, above, ye heavenly host !
Praise Father, Son, & Holy Ghost
Thomas Ken

The road to Jerusalem hatch’d open,
The Templars guard it nightly, like a star,
All Europe flocking here to feel Heaven:
The desperate, the pilgrim, the bizarre;
As western ways
Encroach upon the east –
Into the desert haze the Seljuk Turks releas’d.

What good tidings prick’d Paereaus!
Pious kingdom in the sun!
“The English are victorious!”
”London delivers Lisbon!”
”The times & tides turn serious
For Allah’s talisman!”
From single stroke such optimism falls,
A shout rings out, “The Turks are at the walls.”

These rampant Mohammedians
Cut off the Holy Land
From Christians’ relief legions,
Men bleeding in the sand,
& begging Islam’s mercy, are all slaughter’d out of hand.

Dorylaeum
1147

---

Birth of Berlin

Thou should’st tell me all its story,
Whence, and where, it cometh here,
That my heart may yet be wary.
Herr Ulrich von Liechtenstein

As rivers seek a causeway to the sea
& change their course when rocky terran strong,
Crusader States turn north for Germany
Admonishing each easy, heathen throng;
“Ye pagans proud,
Baptise or be deceas’d!”
Slavs form a rabble crowd & grovel to the east.

As curdling milk congeals to cream
Steps tentative turn to stride,
Into abandon’d forests teem
The Aryans, sky-blue eyed,
Whereby this signal, signet stream
Tween Elbe’s & Oder’s glide,
Builds up a town amidst the finny lakes,
Fair beauties flow as early morning breaks.

Knights bound for Lithuania
(They’ll convert pagans there),
Out-spill from the silviculture,
Filling a cobbl’d square,
Where, breaking fast, near morning mass, men share a battle-prayer.

Germania
1147

---

Jacob’s Ford

We are the fallen.
O . . . Death Angel,
will you convey our bodies to heaven!
Zeyar Lynn

Damascus seiz’d by Sa-Lah-Din, & so
Encircling siege surrounds Crusader States:
Leprous Baldwin reacts, & acts not slow,
Building a bristling buttress at the gates;
“An iron key,”
Wise Sa-Lah-Din believes,
“Unlocking it shall free Jerusalem from thieves!”

Before impregnable ramparts,
Islamic slogans crying,
A mine explodes, the battle starts,
Fine arrow storms are flying
At Templars whittl’d down in parts,
‘Til, surrender-sighing,
The fortress falls, altho’ six hours away
Baldwin sees smoke… him sinking in dismay

Calls off the march, a klutz alone,
Strategy in tatters,
His chance has blown, as stone-by-stone
Down his castle clatters,
Delightment-dappl’d Sa-Lah-Din blesses current matters.

Galilee
1179

Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem perpetuam; Saevis inter se convenit ursis… Ast homini ferrum letale incude nefanda produxisse parum est

Juvenal

---

Ghengiz Khan

East of Eden is mountains & desert & every
thing creeps up on you & comes in the night,
unexpectedly
Paul Blackburn

The babe born with a blood-clot in his fist
Knew fratricide before his father died –
Posion’d by rival tribesmen – the promised
Inheritance was his, & now a bride;
Naught did they lack,
& led, they, simple life,
’Til bad Chief Krull attack’d & stole away his wife.

As from defeat the notion springs
Of victory’s existence,
Brave Temujin tightens bowstrings,
Makes men respect insistance,
& launch’d them on vendetta’s wings
To a violent vengeance,
& saving his dear wife from devil’s den
He boil’d alive Chief Krull & all his men.

This was no ordinary soul,
Spirit excelsior,
Who hears the rolling thundercall
Of conquest & of war,
When all the surface of the world shall tremble at his awe.

Mongolia
1181

---

Sa-Lah-Din

It is bitter
To walk among strangers
When the strangers are in one’s own land
Iain Crichton Smith

The Crescent League cries faith & sacred war;
Turban’d Berbers, pitch-black Afric captains,
Pristine Emirs, the shark-paced Almacor,
Sunburn’d Saracens & Syrians;
Lord at the helm,
One man unites them all,
To raze Outremer’s realm & seize the Wailing Wall.

Damascus & Aleppo fall
To the dark Mujahaddin,
Crushing Christian armies small
At that slaughter at Hattin,
“Allah!” the cause, “Allah!” the call,
“Allah! & we shall win!”
At last, on Heaven’s city look’d he down,
There man-on-man press’d forwards for renown.

The situation sacrosanct
Beneath a saffron sky,
The Templars thank’d their lord, outflank’d,
They knew them set to die,
But to preserve this Paradise they could but only try.

Jerusalem
1187

---

Frederick Barbarossa

The glories of our birth & state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate
James Shirley

Being the European Suzerain,
Capp’d by the Iron Crown of Lombardy,
Red-bearded leader, redux Charlemagne,
First Chapiter of Milites Christi;
Congregations,
Heard stirring aria,
“Seek your souls’ salvations, march with the Emperor!”

Waltzing off to war’s grave meeting
With firm, steady demeanour,
Pounding hearts in strong chests beating,
Ventricles lusting vigour,
As on their arms, golden gleaming,
Daylight tinting brighter,
Pregnant with promise of a perfect day,
The mighty breath of life in human clay.

Alas! it was a little stream
That kill’d a god-like king,
A drowning dream…Heaven dost gleam
Thro’ Selaph’s glimmering,
There Seraphs beckon utterwards towards the reckoning!

Cilicia
1190

---

Richard I

This desert, to which you came
with two raised palms like an absurd hope,
no longer begets prophets
Amjad Nasser

The Lionheart of England goes to war;
His helm: respect-expostulating deeds,
His sword: the sacred fury of god’s law,
His shield: the lamb & all his righteous needs;
His pond’rous mace,
Shall shatter waggling foes,
His head: his noble grace, his heart: an English Rose.

Seeking Allah’s extirpation,
Preaching peace, but wielding war,
Making trails of acerbation,
“Come & fight!” corbrechtan roar,
Confrontations, hesitation,
Runs thro Mohammed’s corps,
As all along the front His Highness rode
No man dare meet the challenge of his sword.

Sa-Lah-Din & his great army
Repell’d from Arsuf plain,
But victory, elusively,
From both men would abstain,
Instead… peace nervous spreads for prayers, burials & pain.

Jaffa
1192

---

Teutonic Knights

Need to belong has made me come
to help rebuild Jerusalem,
where everyone is family
Karen Gershon

A thirsty seige, sunrise follows sunrise,
An endless killing, moats filling with dead,
Breeding legions of disease-spreading flies,
Maggots burrow’d in mouldy, meagre bread;
Behind which walls
A German hospital
Of dedicated souls, primes for zealous battle.

In the long wars of religion
At the gates of Christendom,
Suffering their faith in fusion
With lord god & His bellum,
Happy Hanseatic legion,
Ordu Pugnatorum,
Raising the lofty flag of Heaven’s fight,
Teutonic in their blood, in blade a knight!

As tired beseigers melt away
Inspired Crusaders cheer,
Then kneel & pray, them to this day
Knew God’s justice would steer,
Sensing their lot was spared by fate, but for what course unclear.

Acre
1197

---

Spanish Rebirth

The hymn falls silent, the stone bleeds.
The prayers chafe against the stone. The voices chafe
against the prayer. The hymn chafes against the stone.
Eva Ström

The troubadour descended from the ben,
In him was human artistry allied,
Singing of arms & empires & the men
Whom battles fought & kingdoms gentrified;
Bold verses move
Castille’s resplendent court,
Men’s valors set to prove when Reconquista fought!

El Cid’s endeavours have enflamed
The trains of Spain’s militia,
For far too long they’ve been ashamed
Of a native patria;
Navarra, Aragon, reclaim’d
With gold Galicia;
No more uprose the five-times daily din
Of Muslims by the bull-finch Muezzin.

The Almohads of Africa
Are sent to stem the tide,
Grand armada thro’ Grenada,
But murder meets the stride,
As six progressive centuries of Islam’s light hath died.

Las Navas de Toloda
1212

---

Mongol Threat

The mountain Sharshar he turned into a void
he felled the trees of the forest of cedar.
The woodland looked as if traversed by the Deluge
Erra & Ishum

The dark tribes, unified beneath one king,
Traverse the Gobi, pierce Qin Shi Huang’s Wall,
Bring all their might to bare upon Beijing,
As conquerors absorb its cultured soul;
Karakorum!
Heartlands of history,
Mongol imperium marching off to glory.

By mountain, forest, steppe & sea,
Go the Khan’s ambassadors,
Insulting Persian perfidy
Sends two of them back headless,
Decapitates diplomacy,
Ghengiz felt bitterness,
& pointing westwards with a frozen sword
A storm of arrows oer the Silk Road soar’d.

That blood-debt settl’d & repaid
Five hundred thousand times,
A cavalcade of violence flay’d
A path thro’ Persian climes,
T’where Christendom & Islam trembles at the Mongol’s crimes.

Asia
1222

---

Mongol Advance

where the wind remembers the enemy
where the moon is yellow & horned
I walk’d as tho’ in the sea’s depth
Anna Akhmatova

Tho’ Ghengiz Khan is dead what spirit soars
Boundless, as the impenetrable skies,
Now his young horselets view the coursing wars
Thro’ slanting & steel-hued rapacious eyes;
Warrior race,
Blood-forg’d formidable,
Whole villages erase – scenes indescribable!

Thro’ hillswept Urals hoof-prints pound,
Then splash thro’ Volga’s water,
At Novogrod the godless found
Resistance earns, ‘No quarter!‘
Trails of deda bodies choke the ground
Kiev on to Georgia,
There noble men grovel for liberty –
The bloody swamp of Mongol slavery!

Young Morad rode into the west
For all the gold men made,
Yon Budapest onto the crest
Of Christendom’s crusade,
Til forests high & haunted halt the heathen cavalcade!

Europe
1241

---

Mamluk Dawn

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle blade,
And furious every charger neighed
Thomas Campbell

When the disaffected rise from slumber,
Ye gentlemen, afraid be of your slaves,
Else Spartacus admit to that number
& garden weeds cover thy royal graves;
In auld Egypt,
Boldly the slave-race grew,
Wheeling on an edict, a military coup!

This new paras enters the game
Of Palestein’s knotted plots,
Wishing to win outrageous fame
& those precious pepper pots,
Being the first to inflict shame
Of loss that glory rots,
As coming on the roving Mongol horde
Men, one-by-one, along the ridge, draw sword.

Morad stood in the bodygaurd
Of his great lord Ordu,
The fighting hard, the day ill-starr’d,
The royal horse withdrew,
An unexpected moment, ‘Full retreat,’ blew Hulegu.

Ayn Jelut
1260

 

The barbarians are to arrive today

C.P Cavafy

---

Death of Morad

A thousand, ten thousand miles I’ve roamed.
By rivers where the green grass grows thick,
Beyond the border where the red sands fly
Han Shan

The Mamluk may have driven Mongol back,
But Islam still quivers for grammercy,
Hashassin forts crush’d neath a fresh attack,
Then Araby, up to the Grecian sea;
Such victories
Have crippl’d Kings with fear,
Miscarried pregnancies as Morad’s armies near.

In Xanadu’s lush pleasure dome
He met the great Khan, Kubla,
“Good captain, welcome to my home,
What’s mine must be your pleasure,
When ye have done traverse the foam,
Launching from Korea
An invincible fleet of invasion
& put to sleep these sheeplings of Nippon.”

See supra-strobile typhoon blow,
Lucky kamikaze:
Minamoto Tamatono
Shoots arrows cross the sea,
& slices open Morad’s throat… he chokes in agony.

Japan
1274

---

Crusader Sunset

We pray that Thou wilt grant, O Lord,
safe passage to our vessels bringing
heathen souls unto Thy chastening
Robert Hayden

The Mamluk Sultan shares the spoils of war;
From Cairo, beehive of the Muslim sphere,
His horsemen rode, & the Levantine shore
Was port-by-port broken upon the spear;
Christ’s foremost hymns
Silenced by Mahomet,
Leaves scaphelated limbs & driven deep regret.

From Nazareth to Tripoli,
Thro’ Haifa & Ceasara,
Acres of Christianity
Ever shrinking area,
As Giaour gains his victory –
Antioch & Acre –
The western world back to the west is sent,
The course of Holy Wars a war-horse spent.

Throughout mankind once more hath sprung
The love of lands for gain,
When kings were young, when songs were sung
To add to his domain
As would Edward Plantagent in Prince Llewellyn’s reign.

Gwynned
1291

---

Medievals

La Patria is memory…Scraps of life
wrapped in ribbons of love or of pain;
the murmur of palms, the commonplace song
Ricardo Miró

Grown sick of Crusades, & their crimson gods
The English crown content to claim the Scots,’
First Wallace then The Bruce defy the odds,
A Scotiad defying Longshanks’ plots;
A turn of tide,
Funded by parliament
The Saxon sailors glide down to the Continent

Where feed they King Edward the Third,
Chevaucheing Picardy,
Whose revolutions fate deffer’d
To the hamlet of Crecy,
His yeomen launch a brutal bird,
Murderous arrowrie
Forms over fields, & falling on the French,
Warfare hath moderniz’d with murd’rous wrench.

As longbow & ribauldequin
Their poor foes decimate,
The kings begin to sense the spin
Of roulette wheels of fate,
Prowess is not important whence from distance death dost wait.

Europe
1346

---

Ottoman Empire

Yea, the coneys are scared by the thud of hoofs,
And their white scuts flash at their vanishing heels,
And swallows abandon the hamlet-roofs.
Thomas Hardy

With Seljuk Sultans groaning warfare won –
From Marmora to Anatolia
All fawn before the ultimate sultan,
This Turkestani chief now emperor!
Europe aghast,
Greece forms a falcon host,
Byzantium bypass’d, Turk storms the Balkan coast.

Thro’ Thessalonika & Thrace
Thrive the Bey & Pasha brown,
The anguish’d tarnish’d Serbs’ disgrace
Mighty Macedon knock’d down,
All Bulgars put in sunless place
While Islam wins renown,
Inflicting fear within each Latin court,
An invisible serpent at the throat.

The Plain of Blackbirds hosts the duel
To end the Balkan war,
The day runs cruel, the Sultan’s rule
Thro’ Europe’s corner tore –
Beyond, kings live in luxury, but wolves growl at the door.

Albania
1389

---

Rise of Moscow

Listen,
if stars are lit
it means – there is someone who needs it
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky

From squabbling fractions of the Mongol zone
Nobility clings to the Golden Horde,
Keeps Russian princes firmly on his throne
Beneath the cushion’d presses of a sword;
Cunning masters
Of realpolitik,
Centralising taxes with royal rhetoric.

As Slavic leaders unified
To secure their native soil,
One drifted to the other side,
Determin’d to stay loyal,
Asian might aiding Ivan’s ride,
The rebel fools to foil –
When in the ruins of Novogorod
He’ll dedicate his victory to god.

Respectful of this loyalty
The Duke of Vladamir
Made royalty, thro’ Muscovy
First palaces appear,
Ordain’d to rule a wilderness stretching to Korea.

Russia
1392

---

Teutonica

A white stone half-dug into the soil,
Said to me as I was passing by:
– God bless you, pray, I’m a tombstone
Azim Souyun

As when a lover lusts with wanton arms,
Or when the pilgrim years for sainted bone,
& thinkers first hear of the desert’s charms,
Or when in Arthur’s chest the Grailquest grown;
Bright knights advance,
Their destiny releas’d
Into the vast expanse that is the dancing East.

Sword-brother-brethren first remove
Baltic tribesmen from Prussia,
Then caught in an annual groove
Fortify the Vistula,
Better in mettle did they prove
Oer Lithuania –
But by battle’s bouncebackability
Pagans ally with Poland’s proud army,

Whom on a day amid the lakes,
Administer defeat –
The white wave breaks, what anguish aches,
Too proud to call retreat,
Charges the doom’d Grandmaster, ‘Drang nach Osten‘ incomplete.

Tannenburg
1403

---

Constantinople Fall

‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she
With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’
Emma Lazarus

As panting deer outpace the panther’s claws,
Then sleep where wolves oft meet in company,
The Ottoman clamps down his drooling jaws
Upon outposted Christianity;
Eighty thousand
Gore-grizzl’d warriors,
Encamp upon the sand kissing soft Bosphorous.

As cannon swallow gunpowder,
Spitting out destructive balls,
Such a clamour ripples louder
From the beaches neath the walls,
Scenes of sorry death enshroud her,
Byzantium she falls –
As Janissaries slew the last Ceasar,
Crescent flags command the Kerkoporta.

Leaving the Sultan to his prize
The Genoese flee,
The local wisemen realize
Passage to Italy,
Leaving a city changing name, shaming its history!

Istanbul
1453

---

New Spain

But just before the end
there is always this crepuscular hailstorm
echoing base voice owned by men
Elvis Gbanabom Hallowell

Not knowing world empire was theirs’ to sire
Fair Isobel promised to Fernando,
With passion elevating cannonfire,
Grenada falls beneath the combin’d blow;
United land
Centred upon Castille,
Chief of the bible brand with homicidal zeal.

From Genoa Columbus came
From Cadiz his fleet set sail,
The lure of spice, the lust for fame
Thro that mission did prevail,
Each sunset ‘rison flash’d aflame
Or brooded on a gale,
‘Til verging on murderous mutiny
Thin verdant sliver parted sky & sea.

“I claim this place for regal Spain,”
Flag thrusteth in the rocks,
“This pleasant rain must grow our grain
& feed our teeming flocks,”
On board a sickly sailor breaths out death-streams of smallpox.

America
1492

---

India

You darken the eye of the inland man
when he offers plenty in exchange
without bargain — just to get you
Kumalau Tawali

With Ottoman monopolising trade
Tween Occident & spicy Orient,
A fresh attempt to reach the east is made,
Vasco de Gama sailing on the scent;
On him god smiles,
The sea of storms was calm,
Pass’d many ocean miles with hardly an alarm.

Landing at ruby Kerala
Saraswhati on her plinth,
Gold traded for thymimia,
Pepper, amethyst, jacinth,
From gorgeous gardens of Goa
Extracted hyacinth,
There leaving soldiers to secure the vine
The fleet twice cross’d the equinoctal line.

& receiv’d a royal welcome
Lining the Lisbon shore,
Sum-after-sum a vast income
Pass’d thro’ de Gama’s door
For now defenders of the faith are loving Mammon more.

Portugal
1500

What trouble is beyond the rage of man?
What heavy burden will he not endure?
Jealousy, faction, quarelling, & battle,
The bloodiness of war, the grief of war.

Sophocles

---

Niccolo Machiavelli

If you tear down the web I said
It will simply know
This isn’t a place to call home
Fady Joudah

As battle brutal & incessant grates
The gates of Florence, Venice, Sicily,
Genoa, Naples & the Papal States,
All pounc’d upon by foreign ‘Barbari;’
No tribal seat
Shall keep this clan intact,
At Italy’s defeat ‘twas unity they lack’d.

It is the writer’s lot in life
To say what we are thinking,
Of course this comes weigh’d down with strife,
While heavier the drinking :-
Winning himself a frisson wife
With his Princes linking,
He sets himself a mission to implore
His countrymen their glory to restore.

Some call’d him diabolical,
Degenerate, deprav’d,
Thro’ which evil courtly counsel
A road to Hell was pav’d,
But in his words lies common sense, their rescue widely-crav’d.

Florence
1513

---

Death of Chivalry

Her tears of bitterness are shed: when first
He had put on the livery of blood,
She wept him dead to her
Robert Southey

Beneath the pyramids the Sultan stands,
Protecting ancestral lands Islamic
From Ottoman conquest, his line expands,
Across the sands strange muskets chambers click;
Fathomless force
That is the flow of time
Electrifies his horseman on a charge sublime.

Those brave Aegyptians went to work,
Yank back drawstrings on their bows,
Their lust for bloodshed bled bezerk
As fann’d one thousand arrows,
But images of future lurk
In the Turkish shadows –
The Mamluk line withers as winter rots
As masters of gunpowder blast their shots.

As Lion Kings must lose their pride
When old worlds meets the young
Lead-ball wall wide of genocide,
Dead men from dead mounts flung
& knowing he would be the last, their last Sultan was hung

Cairo
1517

---

Motecuhzoma

In the beholding eye,
A thousand years of wind
Are cool
Shiki

There was a time when white men thought them best,
Of course we know this naught but braggart’s boast,
But then, there was a time when to the West
Great floating mountains landed off the coast;
“Quetzalcoatl
Has come!” the Emperor,
Faced with an immortal, tribulates in terror.

Hernando Cortez was no god,
Gunpowder was his magic,
Him over honour rode slip-shod,
Intransigencies tragic,
Snapping Motecuhzoma’s rod,
Sends tumbling, double-quick,
A vast empire of gleaming golden plate,
Consumed entire into the Spanish state.

Five hundred years, from pole-to-pole,
European empires
Shall each & all rise up & fall,
Until the thought retires
That men are meant to others rule… Cortez inspects the pyres.

Tenochtitlan
1521

---

Iberia

He was adorned in his very best,
he was oiled like a king,
with beads of silver in his hair
Ama Ata Aidoo

Magellan proves the world a moving sphere,
Criss-cross’d & pin-prick’d by the flags of Spain,
Throne of a restless king, whose lands appear
As gardens of a globular domain;
Unto him comes
The Holy Roman crowns,
The roll of Spanish drums belittling Europe’s towns.

He was a very handsome king
& his fate, a special queen,
Who gifts him her engagement ring,
Valladolid hosts the scene,
Where bridal dress more angel wing
& afterwards, serene,
Alhambra Palace holds a honeymoon
Of warm love-making in the afternoon.

Don Carlos kiss’d his Isobel,
Sending souls delighted,
Seductive smell, the sunset fell,
Verses soft recited,
Then enter’d her with passionfire, with Portugal united!

Granada
1525

---

Siege of Vienna

That ancient tree, don’t let it fall
Until old age is knelling;
So many things it can recall
Hans Christian Andersen

For Suliman, the Caesar’s sultan heir,
This Istanbul a worthy capital,
All creeds & races in her splendour share
Where lonely wives worry after battle,
Whose young boys dream
Of stately tents of war,
Where blazing colours stream & sharp the Zulfiqar!

Part of that Byzantine glory
That was ardent Achea,
Once more denied of liberty
With Belgrade & Wallachia,
North Africa to Hungary
Thro’ Transylvania –
Embassies of nervous western nations
Profess cordial congratulations.

As Turks arrive at Vienna
The French fear for their lives,
But come winter’s onset men were
Loin-weary for their wives,
So left the wall which Suliman defiantly survives.

Austria
1529

---

Monarchia Hispania

I saw the rampart of my native land,
One time so strong, now dropping in decay,
Their strength destroy’d by this new age’s way
FG de Quevedo y Villegas

Conquistadors view the Pacific blue,
Cortez claims the nopal of Mexico,
& the laurels for conquering Peru
Go to gallant Francisco Pizarro;
Strecthing the range
Of Hispanic mandate,
Thro lands & native strange, decorum to create.

Above the earth the sun was sent,
Shining down on land & sea,
From continent to continent –
Volcanic Cotopaxi,
Mozambique, Kerala & Ghent,
Conjoin’d community,
Whose peoples seem powerless to resist
The vigours of this white supremacist.

The virgin world desilverized,
Building a bridge to Spain,
Christianized & Hispanized
To civilise the reign,
Abuzz with swarms of Afric slaves in fields of sugar cane.

South America
1540

---

Opening the Orient

A naked picture of surrealist
Beauty in eerie stumps,
& ancient banyans
Mmoe Malietoa Von Reiche

Among the islands of the coral sword
Pink-faced traders find friendly harbourage,
Lisboan captain meets a local lord
& welcomes him into the modern age;
Gold muskets fire,
Bouy’d by their example
The samurais admire these gifts from Portugal.

Swordsmen of armour’d cavalry,
With battledress their pillow,
Handle their weapons gracefeully
As poets play the koto,
Epitomising chivalry,
Personify Shinto;
No compliments exist enough on earth
To bless the moments of their noble birth.

Persuasive parley was prepared
Scent spreading sensually,
Opinions air’d, religion shared,
Propounded in treaty,
Portugal penetrates indigenous endogamy.

Japan
1543

---

Prophecies

Truth before time
Truth within time
Truth here & now
Guru Nanak

Nature has taught us have aspiring minds;
Fuell’d by the scholarly Byzantine drain
The genius of Leonardo finds,
& unveils, parts of our uncharted brain;
Renaissance men –
Tasso, Copernicus –
Muse with alchemic pen… with them Nostradamus

Peers deep inside his brass tripod;
Shiny, time-flickering eye
Sees mushroom clouds, brash act of god,
Pig-faced pilots heaven high,
Men harnessing a lightning rod
Tall houses scraping sky,
Saw metal monsters spitting yellow flame
Then saw a face, then heard a demon’s name.

Knocking his tripod to the floor
He shrank away in fear,
Demonic roar consumes his core,
Phantasms dissapear,
Fearing for Europe’s future ‘Hister’ writ thro’ misty tear.

Provence
1553

---

Ivan the Terrible

The eagle is king of the birds; among fishes
Leviathan holds the first place.
Cleaving the far, crimson cloud
Sung Yü

As Mother Russia crown’d imperatrix,
Her Caesar has proclaim’d himself the Tsar,
Power-drunk upon the streak sadistic,
Men sent to die for his ascending star;
Entainted souls
Into Hell’s pits are hurl’d –
On men fate crudely falls when madness shapes the world.

Cross oceans flowers besprinkling
Twards the Sea of Caspian,
Boiling, roasting & impaling,
Conquering all Kazakhstan,
Constant drilling, constant killing,
Conquering Astrakhan,
These puppet kings afraid in fealty –
The Mongol Khans but foggy memory.

Fur traders from the Tudor court
Meet the ‘Barbarian,’
Good contract sought, his highness bought
With wonderments western,
Fusing cultural amity twixt Moscow & London.

Russia
1556

---

Malta of gold, malta of silver, malta of precious metal,
We shall never take you!
& from her ramparts a voice replied,
I am she who has decimated the galleys of the Turks
& all the warriors of Constantinople & Galata

Badajoz

---

Digression

Such dire encroachments to prevent in time,
Demands the critic’s voice – the poet’s rhyme.
Can our light scenes add strength to holy laws?
RB Sheridan

I pledge a motion for the grand digress,
Which poems of this nature may include,
Some may question its appropriateness,
Yet others think the moment rather shrewd;
To all accounts
I offer further gloss,
Bless’d by those faithful founts, the Crescent & the Cross.

As we walk among these pages,
With a mind to phantsize,
Ghosts have willow’d down the ages
Forming phantoms in the skies,
As the cataclysm rages
Twix Axis & Allies,
We find the legacies of former times
Have influenced the varnish of these rhymes.

The Knights of Saint John, & their swords,
Seek out new naval base
Departing Rhodes, darting Whale-roads,
Like pirates at a pace,
To settle on a treeless rock & fortify its face.

Malta
1530

---

War’s Promise

I feel that I am the king of time
I possess the earth and everything on it
and ride into the sun upon my horse
Nizar Qabbani

The Peacock of the World rose from his throne,
Wishing a land-lock’d sea a Turkish pond,
“The fish of Malta is the stepping stone
To Sicily & all the world beyond;
That obscure rock
Insults us & our queen,
Thus from their viper-dock we’ll drive the Nazarene.

My finest force I shall employ,”
Added Allah’s deputy,
“These sons of dogs ever destroy,
Tho’ they earn’d my clemency
When I was young & full of joy
Thro’ my first victory,
& I allow’d them honour after Rhodes –
No more shall we suffer their vile marauds.

Our scimitars their throats shall slit,
Dragut, prepare the fleet!“
Yearning credit, gurning merit,
Gen’rals kiss jewel’d feet,
Then divan leave, planning the heathen’s ultimate defeat.

Istanbul
1564

---

Call to Arms

My grandmother is calling her goslings
My mother is summoning her hens
The sun has vanished into the ocean
Marilyn Chin

Grave news flies to Grandmaster De Valette,
Tho’ days of armageddon clamour near,
From coming frays his faith shall never fret,
To him the infidel inspires no fear;
“Prepare the walls,
Cancel every corso!”
The clang of cannonballs rang thro’ Saint Angelo.

Across the world the summons sent
By ship & sweat-stain’d horsemen,
“Brave knights fly back to the Convent
Go fight beside your brethren!”
Soon many-a-foreign accent
With one voice sang, “Amen,“
Renewing vows at the Sacred Altar;
Each man determined to die on Malta.

Outside, in strangest summer rain,
Four thousand strong Maltese
Shall march & train with men from Spain,
As on the ocean breeze
Soft scented Turkish incense wafted slowly overseas.

Birgu
May
1565

---

Muslim Landing

From the depths of the ocean
a crocodile in search of a destiny
spied the pool of light, and there he surfaced
Xanana Gusmão

From watchtowers the warning cannon ring,
The Sultan’s fleet arrives as a vast fan,
With livestock & the still-green crops of spring
Many to Birgu & Mdina ran;
Dead beast & dung
Poison’d the Marsa wells,
Songs of devotion sung as witches flung their spells.

That armada sail’d round Gozo,
To show that the sea was closed,
Then at the Marsascirroco
Made anchorage unnoppos’d,
As skiffs ferried his war-cargo
Their old commander dozed,
Untroubl’d by the course of coming days,
Sure on him, soon, the Sultan should heap praise.

Dreams were woken by Mustapha,
First sword of the army,
“My young Pasha, what’s the matter?”
Yawn’d adm’ral Piali,
“This is no time for sleeping, we must seek the victory.”

Marsaxlokk
19th May
1565

---

The Fall of Fort Saint Elmo

‘Tis a true & faithful saying –
‘Greater love how can there be
Than to yield up life for thee’
Bishop Doane

Dawn lifted rosy wave-breaks to the shore
Where swept a moment of sickly slaughter
For stubborn struggles, say the laws of war,
May never be allow’d normal quarter;
The Knights prepare
To make their final stand,
One crippl’d in his chair, sword tightly in his hand.

Breachward the Janissaries pour’d,
Pride of the Sultan’s power,
All inside gutted on the sword
Yet not one Knight would cower,
For, still, the Maltese Lion roar’d
For one murderous hour –
Until its throat was cut, then stone-dead fell…
Mustapha stepp’d into that groaning hell,

“So small a son has cost us dear,
Then, what price the father?”
More shots men hear, them very near
Five knights fled thro water,
Guided by Toni Bajada safely, cross the Harbour.

Birgu
June 22nd
1565

---

Pivotal Point

Like cormorants that seek a submerged prey.
An angel of destruction guards the door
And keeps the peace of our ancestral home
Henry Head

By boat & tower came the great assault,
The Port of Castille reeling neath the blow
All seeming lost, but for that thunderbolt
The gods upon our mortal minds bestow;
Hospital horse
Roll’d down Mdina’s ramp,
Set on a killer course to burn the Muslim camp.

As every able-bodied Turk
Rush’d toward the walls in waves,
The christians perform’d such work
On their wounded & their slaves
That thro the smoke of battle’s murk
A road of error paves –
When verged on perfect triumph Pasha hears
“Relief is sent,” fulfilling all his fears.

He march’d his army back to base,
Of enemy no sign,
His fuming face wick with disgrace,
Neck-heckles, shiver-spine,
“Where are these men from Sicily, the victory was mine!”

Marsa
August 7th
1565

---

The Last Assault

In an embrace which was warm and fiery.
I sinned surrounded by arms
that were hot and avenging and iron
Forough Farrokhzad

As mines explode in animosity
Toni Bajoda shot up in his bed,
Tho’ wounded he’d discover’d energy,
Men, from the sacred infirmary, led;
All gallant friends,
Tho’ most could barely stand,
Upon this strength depends the freedom of a land.

As knight shields fill’d walls warp’d by mine,
Courageous Callachio
Join’d by the Maltese at the line,
Equal with corragio,
Toni took toll of twenty-nine,
His knife well-loved the foe,
So much an arquebusier took aim,
& sent shot flying in a flash of flame.

Tho’ wounded, in a world of pain,
Toni did not falter,
Brave Muslim bane heaping his slain,
Sacrificial altar,
Fed by force indivisible, “I shall fight for Malta!”

Senglea
August 18th
1565

---

Gran Sossorso

When liberty is headlong girl
And runs her roads and wends her ways
Liberty will shriek and whirl
Archibald MacLeish

One hundred days of daily hearing, “When?”
Sicily’s Viceroy sends vital relief,
Below Mellieha disembarks his men,
Mustapha strokes his beard in disbelief;
“How many ride?”
“Nigh twenty thousand sire,
Combing the countryside!” “The army may retire.”

All thro’ the night the camp was struck –
As the Maltese heard them yell
Them for more attackers were mistook,
Standing arms, set to repel,
Then saw to sea the foe had snook,
& rang triumphant bell,
Amplified across the purple clover,
“The infidel has fled, the siege over!”

Come dawntint were bells still ringing,
Folk stepp’d outside the wall,
Some dance, some sing, some tear-shedding
On bleeding knees did fall,
As all about black bodies burst, curs’d by the murd’rous maul.

Birgu
September
1565

---

The Relief of Malta

And so when I saw you, nightmare island,
Fade into the autumnal night
I felt the tears rise up for my land
George Barker

Mustapha heard the news he had been fool’d,
Just six thousand form’d Sicily’s relief,
Piali’s caution was soon over-ruled,
“Land ten thousand & meet us up the coast!”
How felt the Turk
When forced back onto land
For more of war’d black work, with peace so close at hand?

Dispirited once brave men are,
Heads filling with dying fear,
Hard galloping down from Naxxar
Swerve the fresh-faced Chevalier,
Men from Mdina & Mgarr
Now on his flank appear,
Enough to finalise his rising doubt,
Cohesion turns to rabble turns to rout.

Some with his friends, some limping lone,
Crawl to the coastal crack,
Shelves of sandstone bare blood & bone,
Christ-sword plunged in their back,
Turks plunging towards safety by the shrill, “…& dont come back!”

Saint Paul’s Bay
September 8th
1565

War is little more than a catalogue of mistakes & misfortunes

Winston Churchill

---

Victorious Valetta

I cannot think this creature died
By storm or fish or sea-fowl harm’d
Walking the sea so heavily armed
Andrew Young

As back to Turkey gloom-cloak’d galleys glide
Let it forever cross the world be known
How one small island majesty defied,
Plucking charr’d feathers from the Peacock Throne;
How Christendom
Triumph’d over Crescent –
Europe’s every kingdom gold-gratitudes have sent.

Auberges of Auvergne & France,
Aragon & Germany,
Castille, Portugal & Provence,
Pour wealth into the kitty,
Fortune enough to help finance
A fortified city,
Forever joining with its founding father,
‘Humillima Civitas Valettae.‘

This was the Ottoman High Tide,
World conquest incomplete
Now Maltese pride with Rome allied,
The grand, Christian fleet
Slaughters the Turkish navy – irreversible defeat.

Lepanto
1571

---

Armada

Let the hen be clawed; let the lion roar;
Let the foolish be pugnacious;
Let the heart be broken with grief.
Llywarch Hen

English impressa dares the best of Spain,
Tho’ feeble-bodied Alfred carv’d her heart,
As Buccaneers ravage her golden Main,
Castille, to punish, plans this bold upstart –
Vainglorious,
Armies pois’d for battle,
Her fleet as numerous as th’Augean cattle.

Sea-fortresses threaten the shore,
’Twas national squeakybumtime,
Drake sent his navy out to war,
Soak’d in chivalry & rhyme,
Fierce as Erymanthean Boar,
Proud men in scurvy prime,
Shall pour hot blood out of a British sky
On men who went expecting not to die.

As day-by-day King Phillip’s fleet
Grew weary for the fight,
On came defeat, with backbone beat
& battle-plan contrite,
Spectres of splendid, gilded ships like crops which locusts blight.

Irish Sea
1588

---

Thistle & Rose

Is not Thy Forth, as well as Isis Thine?
Though Isis vaunt shee hath more Wealth in store,
Let it suffice Thy Forth doth love Thee more
William Drummond of Hawthornden

London laments the passing of an age,
The virgin Gloriana breathes her last,
As clannom-moulds of monarchs hold the stage
Proud Stuart bloodline pours into the cast;
Britain reborn,
One king, one law, one land!
The border guards withdrawn, the lords & ladies stand,

“Deirest bretherin & friendis
My two realmis I unite
To endis all oor quarellis,
Together wee must fyght
All oor rascally enemis,
Put them to common flyght,
Letting oor contree prosper with the peese,
& all oor revenues thereby increese.”

The world we live in day-by-day
Was born this very year,
This moulded clay, this keen swordplay,
This burgeoning idea,
That Britain is an entity, her destiny unclear.

London
1603

---

Pilgrim Fathers

Peach blossom that’s made thicker by the rain.
Deep in the trees, I sometimes see a deer,
And at the stream I hear no noonday bell
Li Bai

Far from the divine right of divers kings,
Mayflower unburthens the purer faiths,
Shores paradisean Polaris brings –
No longer men but ragged, pale-faced wraiths;
Indian chief
Welcomes his white guests in,
Advent of native grief, the sentence did begin.

In the land of the Sequana
& the endless prairie plain,
Where the buffalo & cougar
Suckle Susquehanna’s vein,
Horseback tribes have lived forever
Praising both sun & rain,
Content to roam upon ancestral soil –
Now aiding pilgrims in their meagre toil.

Seedling imperial takes root,
The plant begins to spread,
As shoot-by-shoot fresh towns recruit
Life to replace the dead,
Tough slaves are made to gather grain, rough soldiers guard the bread.

North Virginia
1628

---

Closing the Orient

I saw the follies of my former flame,
I turn’d indignant from the hateful sight,
Struck with remorse, and mortified with shame
HJ Pye

As families of monkeys hug the trees
Away from the rambunctious jungle floor,
As dragonflies hover on mountain breeze
Like albatrosses gathering offshore;
Tokugawa
Shuns the approaching West,
European power views more encroaching pest.

The Shogun’s temple throbb’d intense,
“Send them back across the seas,
About our harbours build a fence,
All their goods & assets seize,
& offer them no recompense,
Even the Portuguese,
No more their decadence must we endure,
Let us free Shinto from this stint impure.”

Imagine if the pedalo
Was thrown off Lake Nakki!
From Tokyo to Kyoto
Via Nagasaki,
Old ports are cleans’d of foreign trade, trinkets deem’d quite tacky.

Japan
1640

---

The Thirty Years War

Through a mist that makes five rivers one,
We bid each other a sad farewell,
We two officials going opposite ways
Wang Bo

As shepherds find pockets of anxious sheep
Pull from the flock, as Rajput palaces
Crumble with time, as when the pathway steep
Descends from pinnacles & promises;
Colossal Spain,
Catholic continent,
Lay challenged in her reign by northern protestant.

& so the great death-time begun
Spoken across gypsy palms,
These phrenzied wars of religion
Only spilling blood becalms,
Bouy’d up by Aztec bullion,
Germany up in arms –
As three hundred petty princes squabble
Handsome burghers turn’d to brick & rubble.

The treaty of Westphalia
Ends three decades of wars,
When Europa has together
Made conflict cause-by-cause,
When Prussian gentry muses, “This not peace, but more a pause.“

Berlin
1648

---

Nervous World

An old woman sat alone at the edge
of the market
a pitcher of water beside her
Ante Popovski

Masticating mellifluous parley,
Men praise war & its pale, auspicious strain,
Proving keystones of mortal history,
Even the New World forced to know its bane.
Setting the scene
For godless, global rage,
Deep things to be & been must pass upon this page.

The world has sewn its seeds of woe
In the fertile bed of time,
Every one a weeping willow
Every one commits a crime,
Ye free men of the future show
Thro’ prose or rosy rhyme,
How great world war was always meant to be,
For we will always worship destiny!

Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Warsaw,
Valetta, Washington,
Brussels, Cairo, Rome, Tokyo,
Vienna & London,
Pace round PEACE, a pack of wolves approaching Armageddon.

Earth
1656

---

Sun-King

your smile was my sun anon,
you created upon the earth beauty with your ways,
and my soul in your garden lives on
Knut Hamsun

To be a Frenchman is to feel a king
& if a king of France then feel a god,
The fourteenth Louis, near life’s fountain spring,
Unnerving ancyent nations with his nod;
Thro cocksure steel
& arrogantine steel
His legions conquer Lille, Alsace & Flander’s field.

As godheads in their realmis reign,
Build palaces in the sky,
Upon the Parisian plain
Would heaven on earth arise,
Where courtiers sip dry champagne
& chandeliers surprise;
The sycophantic fervour of Versaille,
Were men on earth ever esteem’d so high?

He builds a string of starry forts
From Verdun to Gravelines,
Then fills the ports with thrilling sorts –
Many a tough marine –
Combine these with her mountains & Europa’s queen serene.

France
1684

---

Siege of Vienna

The bird in me awoke again
Its cry spread anguish
In the heart of my kingdom
Nimrod Bena Djangrang

Islamic spectres on Austria fell,
Vienna must, for Europa, stand firm,
Else Pasha & the Turkish infidel
Into the west & thro their wives would worm;
Aiming the guns
At Allah’s grand empire,
More bonfires than are suns, the Kahlenburg on fire.

As constant as a perfect waves
That rolls into Biaritz,
The Sipahi slip to their graves
In the death-deep city pits,
Tho’ conquest human honour craves
From these far-flung limits,
Facing superior technology,
Fled the apex of Turkish history.

The royal horses are preserv’d,
Churches Hosannah sing,
Islam unnerv’d, Europe preserv’d,
Her internicine spring,
When bleeding for ones empire breeds purpose in existing.

Vienna
1688