Drumnotes

DAYS of the dead men, Danny.
Drum for the dead, drum on your
remembering heart.

Jaurès, a great love-heart of France,
a slug of lead in the red valves.
Kitchener of Khartoum, tall, cold, proud,
a shark’s mouthful.
Franz Josef, the old man of forty haunted
kingdoms, in a tomb with the Hapsburg
fathers, moths eating a green uniform
to tatters, worms taking all and leaving
only bones and gold buttons, bones and
iron crosses.
Jack London, Jim Riley, Verhaeren, riders to the republic of dreams.

Days of the dead, Danny.
Drum on your remembering heart.