Ahead Behind
Barbaric cassowaries roam relentlessly.
Though dimmed by memory, they remain.
Their cruel claws wait to slash red murder.
Beneath the cool porticoes of Rome,
serene senators sat imagining
that all would be as all ever was,
unaware that tomorrow Alaric would knock
and all would never be all again.
Napoleon sauntered across the steppes
blithely ignoring the wolves of winter.
The maps have all turned away from red.
Not a patch of foreign soil remains
that can ever be called forever England.
And now the Statue of Liberty demurely
lifts the gathered folds of her gown
and shits all over a sad, decaying country
that has made lies of all its promises.
Everywhere, the blood dimmed tide is loosed.
In the distance, careful cassowaries consider.
Knowing a ripe time when they see one.
Knowing they will knock tomorrow.
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