Overmood

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Fire-blown mounds of ash do swirl About a charred pathetic doll With one surviving dead man’s eye Whose eyelid flickers back no more Torn up like a tethered fox Mail-shirt bloody, helmet gone Sinking in the ooze of death Upon the hungry battle-mire A crash of sliding masonry As a church wall mourns The king’s hall burns forlorn Like the world tree Laying low at land anchor A survivor peers across the muddy field Naked trees like sticks He retreats into a ditch As, drifting from the smoke, The ghosts of a viking host march forth Wolf-creations, struggle-weary Bloodied axes hanging The spy lies back Earworn by gnarled yarling Considers the greed of man Where no church or school Might ever stand again And, with muddy water in his ears, He tries to remember better years Rowing across a goose-fed mere With a curvesome lady companion How they found a golden bed Hidden in the lofty reeds Where, with finches twittering, they made love With full warm tenderness And the breeze rippled across the water The thud of heavy boots A song not overmood Wakes the warrior from his dream As, with black-toothed grin and priest's gold chain, A bearded carl raises his sword And, with a curdling roar, Thrusts it into the lover’s heart.

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