Death of a Nihilist [poetry]

27. stiller than a silent word

there were no women left here.

and what remained of the men were

gruff, blunt,

gray, weathered.

bleeding the same colour

as the sludge underneath their knees.

reduced to an

indistinguishable shade

from the static stony sky

and rolling rocky grounds

they dwelled upon.

upon the pathway to the village's quare

laid an once proud, prideful history.

mattered not.

a ruination, down in flames.

raindrops dissipated

on chafed shoulder patches and chapped cupped palms.

one never-ending rain blended to another,

desperately scrubbing away the clotted air.

yet the columns of smoke fizzled on,

reeked of old blood and mud,

rotting in sweats and dampness.

the smog: an ash and iron aftertaste

in the back of one's mouths for every sniffle,

like the lazy hemorrhage flow

steeping through dirty bandages.

the crimson bloomed

against stained brown strips of torn canvas,

inked onto underside of loose fingers

squeezing around open wounds,

disintegrated into thin gossamer lines

spiderwebbing outward.

the dead slept with their eyes open,

while the living held their heads down,

arms, back bent under the weight

of damp dirt and gut-torn bodies.

stilled, dull pupils stared upward, downward, outward

to nothing, nowhere,

for no funerals awaited the brave,

and no honours awarded the vanquished.

their names and deaths spelled out in

scrawny foxes and coyotes'

guttural howls and growls.

dashing above the rubbles

and picking amongst collapsed bricks and stones,

invisible gazes,

animals and humans,

flashing from within the inky night.

little disks reflecting the moonlight

crawled up and down the landscape.

closing in.

the slightest twitches between scarred shoulder blades,

was singular indications

of some little life

fighting.