The Daredevils

They warmed each other as brethren safe in this house blessed by their lord,

their talk was solemn, and they lightened hardships by praying and playing Twister

and recycling memories of policies they always loved.

Each subsequently died and sober Republicans try remembering them

for they are veterans too easily forgotten, and this house lives for them.

Beyond their death recriminations spook this crumbling house

feared back then by the red hand of unknown terrorists

whose martyr’s blood could have been its new texture

and not the blue of Democratic settlers who occupy it now.

Still the neighbourhood talk of those three defiant men who lounged

in the Sarcophagus, often haunted by the footsteps of their historical failures

indecent as the floorboards crake; alive in the hours past midnight.

They resonate the Big Three:

Dubya, Chains and La Rhumba; wise men querying the outside world

heavy with power that hung on their shoulders like old creepers over a broken fence

who shook each other’s hands in a fashion strange to their observers.

It was their castle, their squat

and always a guest house for these old men;

They had come from afar

some say as far as Jerusalem, and they were drawn together for freedom

because freedom really matters,

then came the crisis and after victory confusion

troubling them, for they had warrior visions and mandate possessed them,

daredevils elevated by belief, who tried to find a way.