Thou art villains, much alike.

In stages such as these, we walk un-tethered
through the debris of the world we killed.
It is the play we know, just written and first performed
to all the European Royalty who fall as supplicants
at feet of peoples crushed and broken by the earth
they thought would feed them for eternity.

Two houses such alike in weaponry, united through
the mind of one to hate the other and destroy and
nothing more. It is the Sun and in the East, the enemy
falls red through sky unarmed to sink and lie forever
in those revolutionary seas. The sneaker dancing girls
have lost their way and end the putsch with kisses.

We write our way into the world, unknown like minefields,
un-mapped in crops to separate the minds of soldiers
from their bodies and yet left to die, a half-life demon
hiding in the rice and water, waiting for the feet of children
to lift them to the sky and heaven. They give them brains
to terminate, decay in days, a-literate technology.

The peaceniks could invent a weapon, a missile,
filled with the minds of lovers, high-explosive music and
the sounds of Earth, to turn the enemy around
to thoughts of green and grey and music from their childhood.
In the woods, the history of men is found, a wargame
pounding in the ears of huntsmen and of spies.

Verona falls, crushed by love and poetry;
blank verse to capture once the cries of high-born,
loving daughters as they fall into the arms of sons
their kin will hate until the birds do not sing or nest.
The chemicals flow through the air and blood
and we die thirsty smiling at the feet of all.

The desperate strength of Paris calls for execution,
the armies gather for the love of just a single woman,
at the gates of all the ancient cities. We sink, sink
our despair made real by conflict and the love of all.
We reach the sea-bed and swim with things that
humans never see; strange deeps and water-angels.

We trespass sweetly in this world and steal everything
we need. We do not own ourselves or others.
Kiss death and die, you empty-headed singers.
We breed a new race in this hell, a race of mystery
and emptiness where love and life are less than all
the things we buy to make us happy.

This is void happiness, grey comfort missing love,
where angels sit or lie, head in hands,
where science kills the rainbow and unpicks the
beauty of the Universe; it is ours for all time,
ours to break and ours to kill. Fair Juliet
is never Science, always love. Love for all time.

Recorded "Live" as it were.