A fuse is
lit.
The city
echoes silence
as though
her sounds
had fled
with her
people through
the Kolomna Gate.
Down in
the square
a riot
that was yesterday
la Grande Armée
mimes
a torch-lit fair
trading
ordered
safety for
looted
furs and brandy. High
above them
in a palace window
two deliberate
candles
testify
the Emperor
works
toward the dawn.
Redingote grise and little cocked-hat
flung across
a
stupidly rococo
and
un-martial chair;
arsenic
numbed and swollen legs
useless
now for pacing
he
lies
waiting on
the captured bed
of the
Tsar of All the Russias.
Waiting.
A week ago
at Borodino
massed artillery
tore a hole in time
and
eighty-thousand dead
groaned
across a century at the Somme.
Now
thrust
and counter-thrust
realpolitik
and pride’s
rationalisations
probe each
other’s entrails on the ceiling
– the hollow calculations
of Pyrrhus’
triumphant vigil.
Stasis. Mute
cacophony
of
footsteps longed-for in vain.
Burnout – drained
by wrangling
a machine
whose levers
shop-worn
jump no
more at his touch.
Sleep
– retreat
into an
ice-lashed nightmare
groping in
the blizzard
for a
peace that will not come.
A fuse is
lit.
Beyond the
guttering tongues
of his propagandist candles
Moscow
starts to burn.
