Decree no. 2015
Roy Marshall

Calm as a mass of Kevlar helmets assembled beneath a flag
or stacked heat-seeking heads awaiting discharge
we shall pursue the following goals;

if deemed applicable, the slowest runner shall be caught,
his or her head, blown off. Monkeys may be mown from trees,
collaterally. A beetle might be all that survives

to crawl through ash on a hospital floor. The street
will be supplied with ignition until it flames, brandy-blue,
the school draped in drifts of smoke that shift

with the serenity of a screensaver. We condone the denting
of mandible and temple, the bleeding out of toxic creeds.
We shall construct and combust a crucible, order the removal

of fauna and flora and give no quarter on the basis
of either age or gender. We pledge to use uranium, phosphor,
or whatever may be readily purchased from our regular supplier,

in the pursuit of freedom. We shall reduce those who,
in their hubris, consider themselves irreducible. This we do
solemnly decide on behalf of and in the knowledge of god.

Roy Marshall lives in Leicestershire where he works in education and writes short stories and poems.

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