Pray for me,
He told her,
Holding her pale hands against his lips,
Outside the broken stained glass windows were stained
rocks red with the blood of ten thousand times ten,
Red ran from smoking holes in suits of armor lifting
sour pistol smoke up towards the red sun,
Dying cries of warrior boys calling screaming for far-away
mothers they would never see again,
Trying to stuff their guts back into the cavernous
spaces of their spilling stomachs,
Their hands stained the color of bile - orange, yellow, red,
In a canyon so far from home so many came to die,
Some swore unquestioned allegiance to the Black King and followed
him across the stars to fall in droves like
the waves that once broke over that red sand,
Some gave their oath to the Red King and with calls
to arms raised their banner high over Olympus Mons where
man first trespassed upon their soil by the ignorant
ramblings of blind robots,
Where so many million years before clear water once ran
through rivulets of the arroyos the red water of life now
revisited those meandering tracks,
In thick trickles it abandoned the dying bodies of all
manner of creatures alike,
In death mankind found in himself a close kin to that
race of thin-fingered astral pilgrims,
Soldiers from both fronts slept one last sleep and gave up
their spirits to wander the infinite cosmos,
Still, there was blood yet shed,
In the skies above more pale-faced legionnaires would soon descend,
Like insect parasites they disgorged from their hulking
warships hungry to replicate,
Hungry to infect with the diseases of famine and decay,
They arrived once a strange new friend,
Now they became a pest,
When the landing pads of their bollard copper beasts
gluttonous with men
touched the red killing sands they would meet yet again,
For in the caves below cities were burning,
In the caves the war trumpet echoed,
In the caves the hearts of the people ran red with revenge,
In the caves they marched,
Past the stone idols and the broken sailing vessels
that took them from star to star,
Past the bodies of dead grey children
whose carbon they would recycle into oxygen,
Past the empty citadels where man once
stood to preach a false peace,
Past the artificial lights and the war chests and
the caged beasts,
They rallied to the last red soldier,
Tall green-skinned space men who mapped the heavens long
before mankind had left his crib,
Helmets of heavy caliginous eyes,
Hollow bones,
Long limbs of tight muscles and fleet of foot,
To reclaim their home,
Take back their planet stolen,
She pulled her hands away from his,
Fingered the plastic black cross that hung above her pale breasts,
Her black cloak fell around her,
The hooded cowl framed her small oval face,
Powdered cheeks and thin lips,
Black moist eyes,
His battle axe lay propped against a carving of their Christ,
The church lay in ruins,
A dim and distant sun splashed multi-colored scenes of religious
ecstasy on the splintered pews,
The statue burned black from a fire recently subdued,
The air stank,
He did not move,
She reached out to touch his head where the black helmet
pushed into his temples and left deep marks there in his skin,
His hair a pelt of black mane mangled by sweat and
the dirt of a thousand nights,
His knees bent and the memory of that metallic armor on the stone
when he fell there before her still resounding in her skull,
His black cape like folded wings across his back displaying
in vivid spectacle the pennon of the people he fought for,
The black war eagle holding in its talons the spear and the crown,
His skin was warm,
His blood beat against her fingertips through the thin veil of his flesh,
He watched her face as she traced the line of his
jaw with her other hand,
Slender hand,
Brittle and translucent,
A thing of fine glass against the coarse black beard that sat
shallow on his cheeks,
In the distance a thunder fell in a land where clouds were faint,
The drums of a coming nation,
The ground moved and the church walls groaned,
The Black King never left her eyes,
Death marched in the red canyon towards them,
What is it that you want,
She asked,
His answer was quiet but fierce,
For there was time yet left for madness,
As he stood,
He said,
I want everything.
11.2012
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