He lived in a town called Malice,

On the corner of All Souls and All Saints,

Is the Moravian church

Constructed in memory of  Jan Hus,

And of all those Hussites burnt at the stake,

For believing differently.

In this late November we will fire off 

Fireworks, like blood red poppies,

To explode like nebulas of stars,

A late memory of the slaughrer of the Catholics who sought

To blow up the king in Parliament.

Fireworks will descend into the black hole of suburbia,

A tangle of smoke clinging to our clothes.

Elsewhere, a veneer of dusty history sparkles

As the mist shifts

Revealing the waiting hordes,

Hiding behind braziers, chestnuts, mufflers,

Minature gloved  aficionados of velvet revolutions

Descended into a tug of war

As we head into the feezing wind off the Danube.

Dark spreads across the sky

Flaring into lighted matches for cigarettes, Mingling with the whiff of beer,

People alive through this last, late November day,

Silent goingaway parties fill the corners of the empty squares

It's all over, man,

so unexpectedly late

Last one out,

Please shut the gate.