Dancers scatter shapes through fields of war:

Dancing around the stink and smell and sweat,

Dancing to a tune or to a heartbeat,

Dancing for their supper, dancing on the dead,

Dancing through the bullets and the bayonets,

Dancing on graves and above the pyres.

It once was simple: sessions at the barre,

A bit of matinée soft-shoe shuffle,

Of tip-tap or baggy-trousered ballroom.

Now a new rite is writhing and churning

And dancing is non-stop, until you drop.

The chosen ones prevail; the rest crumble:

Falling off the wheel and left to flounder.

Shorn of limb and bone, we shall all succumb.