Poetry

The gentlemen in velvet mean business,

surviving, thriving

under our relentless assault,

taking everything we throw at them,

strych- nine and petrol,

acid and explosives,

sulphur and smoke.

​

Implacably building their army,

roiling, toiling

in dark fields beneath our feet,

forty million soldiers

dreaming of a reckoning,

remembering the day

they killed a king.

Finn Brooke is a New Zealand poet, previously writing under the pseudonym Gwyn Ryan. He owes his love of poetry to those who have gone before and to the enduring myths and legends of all cultures that speak
to our shared human experience. His work has been published or is upcoming in Investigate, Quadrant & Blue Unicorn.