The faces in defeat are many

The faces in defeat are many,
don't think I did not try to erase them,
condemned as they were to rise again
pale in their bath from a pit of chalk and lime
- oh the neighbours will gossip stupidly, no doubt -
that is the half-awake world.

On the other hand, you,
made of the unseemly mold of the defector,
spiritless and without guide in this
nauseating wasteland,
the same perennial engravings,
ununderstandable as they are in their
innoble alphabet that history will do well
and be merciful to forget, endowed
with no grace or better inspiration.
the same cheap stuff for headstones
sent by the Minister.

Thus you stand in front of them, mute beyond,
with great wings adorned in their magnificient span,
looking at you emaciated from their feeble green slopes.
You care not for gods, but they care less for you.
Neither do their angels.
Oblivious to whether is it fire that rains on you
or if you yawn yourselves to death
in another interfile dawn.

Chained together in the hour of parting,
vision and honour less,
cut clear against a sky that verges on abject cacti.
That harsh and uncouth in the painful faint
that even a hardened army horse
would have trouble enduring it.
Trench, wreath, gob, blood,
bed of straw from a dying cow...
hands that move around, veiny but perished already
in their cruel calluses

No, things do not change.
We will not sit in the golden halls of our forefathers
as promised.

If you still did not realize, just poke your head out
and look at the lights in the ring road.