My Lord, God knows I am your loyal vassal
no word has reached us and our plight
has deepened, the sally gate has fallen.
Wombat sappers under the cover of black cockatoos
(We could see nothing in the moonless night)
advance relentlessly, undermining all in their path.
As though blind to all consequence, swooping acrobats
of sworn enemies are united in pursuit of the turrets;
plummeting as lightning shuttlecocks.
Ashen faced cuckoo shrikes echo our betraying steps
reveal our position to lolling parrot corsairs,
squeaking conceits are all about us.
The mopokes allow us no sleep, keep time
for the nocturnal barrage of kookaburra flak
in banging fusillades shaking us to the bones.
We are invested, mountain ash
drain the slurry moat the watch tower tumbles,
in the citadel yard my best were as mill barley.
No quarter left to give, the stairway swept
war painted wallabies advance no longer garrulous,
echidna scribes work the last door in sigilic rhyme.
No message is out of the demesne, owls shred
our weasel words to snow on tree ferns refracting,
the sentinel trapeze fronds impenetrable.
All hope weary traveller has left us, our journey spent
in the drunkenness of oil and the snuff of coal,
we were consumed in temporal amnesia.