Hell’s chariots
Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori
Silence has fallen across reality
As cold blankets the lands of man
When love flees the hearts of brothers
Tempests shattered by wings of chaos
The wild hunt is set free upon all
Young men shall be sacrificed
A dread storm rises on winds of hate
Circles bound by iron and blood
Man and machine, together shall ride
The void shall claim us all
Yet bravery will marks us all
Outboard, inboard ignitions primed
Heart beats marching to fading miles
Thunder of mechanical drums
Man the soul of mechanical wings
Iron leviathans take to the winds
To the east their chariots ride
The burning winds of hell make chase
Darkness cloaking chaos’s approach
Moon and stars fade from halos above
Tendrils of lighting reach to the heavens
Fires irrupt on lands bellow
Fires irrupt in skies above
Look to your left as brothers irrupt in flames
Look to your right as Icarus blazes
Look to the front, approaching even horizon
The death song shall sing you
Yet Phenix rises on prayers of bravery
A blazing fortress, besieged and defiant
Old girl, deliver me from deaths embrace
Old girl, protect me from harms embrace
Old girl, carry me home to those who love me
Behold Icarus, returning home
Slipping from the death songs embrace
Yet never to be the same again
Those who were sacrificed
Shall forever live on as heroes
Never to fade away
Let the age old lie die
It is sweet and fitting
To die for one’s country
Tristan Barnard
BSc Wood & Wood Product Science,
STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY
This last poem is the opposite to Mercy and reference the cruelty that human beings are capable of by describing or creating a story around the bomber pilots of World War 2. Human history seems shaped by our extremes and as such by conflict and thus it has effected us all in ways unseen and affected families in ways unseen and so I wished to pay homage to all those men and women who sacrificed for us all.
