THE MYSTERIOUS SALLIES (sic) ¹

The Generals buy, interpret and divide
the silence and the word.

As stern and absolute as heaven,
and as dreadful and black, they are. Their mansions
take up
two parts blood and one part solitude
and from there, apparently immobile, they pull
strings
attached to nervous mastiffs
with gold dentures and the human look, and so pull off,
it's common knowledge, mysterious sallies (sic) ¹
of the highest order, while their mute rings
of power hum and swell.

The Generals are gentlemen, possessors
of codes, lives and houses, and respectable members
of the Holy Catholic Church, Roman and Apostolic.