Handicap

Our jockeys wear white.
Theirs dress all in black.
Ours ride without heads.
Theirs hands lack.
‘Round they go on proscribed track,
desperate for place and position.

Your jockeys wear black.
Ours shine in white.
Ours ride disarmed.
Yours lack for sight.
In mud and blood
they slog and fight,
with neither side prevailing.

From My perch in the stands
I see them all –
the headless, the handless,
the inevitable Fall.
With gashes and trickles
and foam-flecked mounts,
bursts and spurts,
yet never a doubt
that they are Chosen,
the others be Damned.

Eternal strife courts the fall of Man.