A Poem: The Dead Year

It was a dead year when we went beyond the woods

The hopes and dreams of the common folk dropped stillborn into the muck

Our fields unharvested, tasks abandoned mid-stride

Homes dark and hollow

Roads vacant

A fell cloud spread across the land, heavy and oppressive as gravedirt

And yet untangible. A force driving man against man. A mental pressure from which there would be no relief.

It came as the vanguard of the so-called New Order. Those of power were no longer satisfied with most of everything, they wanted it all. Past, present and future, they would take the world and all of eternity for their own.

And us? Well, we were the means to that end. Same as it ever was, I guess. They took our lifeblood by the bucket by the bucket and burned our dreams- fuel for their god-status ambitions.

And yet, some of us live. We stand together. In weakness. In strength. We stand together

And we fight.

It was a dead year when we went beyond the woods