By The makeshift town of Trigozon, infamous
for its cooking pots and funerary urns
made from the Atrigo river’s oily mud,
has been completely razed. Marauders
from the Southern Deserts are suspected.
The surviving townspeople – the usual
motley of foreigners with their jabbering,
their ailments, their wretched chattels,
and their incessant, wordy liturgies –
are slowly moving here to the walled
and timeless city of Marazon.
Meanwhile beyond the fast flowing Atagorsh
in the north, there are rumours of hostiles
massing on the Sparse Plains, with their goatskin tents,
and their restless herds of ragged horses.
Our Rulers have decreed that only
native-born citizens of Marazon
will cross the Atagorsh, and that migrants
from the south will be kept outside the walls,
though it is rumoured some are already here
cunningly disguised as denizens.
‘The Gods are angry,’ the High Priestess warns,
‘Before peace there will be havoc.’ The death squads
are on stand-by in their barracks.
'Candide''Waiting For The Barbatians'death squadshavocmarauders
What do you think?