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Berryman’s Dream Song 66 after Thich Quang Duc’s suicide in 1963.

"Karl

All day he stood at Weeping Cross,
While with its shot-ripped flags and battered train,
In full retreat, and stunned by loss,
The army came back through the freezing rain.

Behind, the rearguard seemed to swirl and drown,
As the gunsmoke curdled through the pass.
The slamming volleys switched the wet leaves down,
And scythed the dead upon the reddened grass.

Have done! Let none hereafter heed this cry
For the apostolic chivalry of time long past;
This prayer of all that smote the marble sky
Is least, and yet the proudest, for it is the last."

--Charles Spear, Twopence Coloured (1951)

"Who pedaled the first bicycle over that black stain?

"But the end-rune · is already written:
the loaned life-home · collapses in ruin..."

--Sullivan & Murphy's Beowulf

Know your Dragons.