thirty thousand people

The day was torn and grim

birds yet began to sing

as if they knew

nothing’s eternal

and old gives way to new

that man, one day, will fall

to the nascent murmur of

thirty thousand people chanting

in the fragile dusk of the night.

There is no chosen one,

only the days, torn and grim,

and sometimes hung in the sky

a great white pearl 

that makes us cry

to the undulant tumult of 

thirty thousand people chanting

in the gloaming dark of the night. 

And lost memories

keep coming back

torn and grim

and we dare not look

and we cannot understand

and we thought

we could deal the final blow

estocadar the pain 

the unease, the numbness

perhaps drowned in the roar of

thirty thousand people chanting

in the solemn dark of the night.

But the bull in our brain

in one last flick of his horns

impales, bolts and bucks

in the navel through the mouth 

rips us apart

leaves us bleeding

blue and white 

walled in by the applause

and the deafening thunder of

thirty thousand people chanting

in the grimmer dark of the night.