The Coward's March

In the age of the false saint, bystanders watch
as their statues are torn up by their roots.
One by one, perhaps without realizing, they are herded
like cattle into the heart of the city of strangers,
where the streets are decorated with garbage,
and their ancestor's flag burns.

They press onward, each believing that
he is marching to his own beat. In truth,
their footsteps are the drumline
of the anthem of dying empires.

At the intersection with Harbinger Heights:
A crowd under the six-colored banner, the stolen sigil.
They smell of unhealed wounds and disease.
Some of them kiss the marchers as they pass,
laughing and celebrating, all drunk on lust and liberation.
The sound of chains follows them.

At the intersection with Wormwood Way:
A horde of outlanders carving through the city
like a burning scythe. They have lost their home,
and now the marchers will lose theirs—yet the brutes
smolder not with the rage of their ancestor, but
their greed to destroy the order built by better men.

At the intersection with Abaddon Avenue:
A mob of black-masked traitors. They have forgotten
the faces of their fathers, declared war on their own blood,
and polluted themselves with commodified poison.
Though they are outnumbered and outmatched,
the betrayers' assault is met only with quiet stares.

Finally, a young man realizes his mistake.
"We are marching to our deaths!" he cries.
"Wake up, before it's too late!" But it is already
too late, and no one heeds him for fear that he is right.
He turns to flee, but a fleshy woman in uniform
unfolds from the column and tackles him.
As soon as he hits the concrete, he is abandoned.

Like boiled frogs, the marchers find themselves
blinking at the portal to Hell. In turn, they stop,
only to be forced forward by the ones behind them.
At the end of Babylon Boulevard, beneath a statue
of the blasphemous martyr, the cowards have no time
to scream before they are swallowed by the abyss.
With them fall the last pillars holding up the city of iron and clay.