Dead Angels

 What if the angels all fell dead?
Name a worser thing to dread.
Frozen in a winter frost,
Angels sleep, their love is lost.
Crept behind them to strangle their necks,
Tossed off a cloud into tangled wrecks.
Or what if their limbs were peeled off,
Or lost their insides from a deathly cough?

What if the angels all had died?
None could help them if they tried.
Stifled singing, wishes gone,
No more hoping with the dawn.

What if the angels died tonight?
A blow to their heads with all your might,
Their blood would flow throughout the land,
With bones and eyes, some teeth, a hand,
And glassy wings shattered down,
Their faces bear eternal frown,
With cuts and bruises on their cheeks,
That hardly heal for weeks and weeks.
Or arrows through their holy chests,
And shot through their eyes as they rest,
Their puckered lips peeled off their face,
Tie up their lungs with the finest lace.
Or hang them by their skinny throats,
Or put them in a cage of frothing goats.

What if the angels all were gone?
No hints of them in springtime fawn.
Now glow in winter’s freezing snow.
No warming, loving summer glow.
Their pale, clean faces never more,
Forever darken earth’s living core.
Pensive mortals shout in vain:
Angels blacken, shortened rein.
No more loving, no more trust,
Hope is gone in one short gust.

What if the angels were no more?
What evil then would we endure?