The First City
There was another city once,
‘Fore Arkhelm, and it’s rooftops bright.
A few cracked bricks are all that’s left
Of temples, shrines, and holy blight.
Every man a prophet there,
Every child a priest.
Every woman speaking fire,
And blessed was every beast.
Little things, they clustered there,
The Delta’s always caught these things
Ancestor far too big a word
For hopeful ghosts of uncrowned kings.
Every man a prophet there,
Every child a priest.
Every woman speaking fire,
And blessed was every beast.
Hunger beat in darkened streets,
Worship supped from one town’s dreams.
Daylight waking wonders brought
The congregation woke, and screamed.
Every man a prophet there,
Every child a priest.
Every woman speaking fire,
And blessed was every beast.
Their farms were aisles of dress stone arcs,
The soil beneath quite useless, dead.
Their mines were fallen in and lost,
Stepped pyramids all placed instead.
Every man a prophet there,
Every child a priest.
Every woman speaking fire,
And blessed was every beast.
But what need they of food and steel?
Holy fervour warmed their skin,
And oh, the noise! The bells and drums,
And Tambourines and sacred din.
Every man a prophet there,
Every child a priest.
Every woman speaking fire,
And blessed was every beast.
What happens next is told in sound,
Here, two sects fight and howl and roar
Calls to a hundred kinds of prayer
Plainsong round the temples soars.
Every man a prophet there,
Every child a priest.
Every woman speaking fire,
And blessed was every beast.
The sound grows dim in gradual time,
Starved lips cease to sing and pray,
Wasted bodies fall, brittle thuds,
Untended beasts all low and bray.
Every man a prophet there,
Every child a priest.
Every woman speaking fire,
And blessed was every beast.
The bells tolled silence, movement ceased.
The carrion flies all took their share
The rest is quiet, sinking deep
Hiding that it was ever there.
Every man a prophet there,
Every child a priest.
Every woman speaking fire,
And blessed was every beast.
The warning’s there, that I now tell,
Little prayers will sometimes throng
To quiet towns that mean no harm.
Forgotten gods do monstrous wrongs.
Every man a prophet there,
Every child a priest.
Every woman speaking fire,
And cursed was every beast.
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