My huge skull a cage of curved teeth,
I shall have my fill, shred flesh.
I grind the bones of young and old, feast
deeply: a terrible lizard, it is said.
I stalk this swamp, smelling the air
for the stink of my prey or decaying flesh.
Clumsily, I trundle and comically scare:
my arms prongs, but a terrible jaw to impress.
The outlook for this evening is moderate to fair;
I love this temperate clime, it’s twilight now.
The blackness strung above me is an inky blare
pocked with a thousand dead eyes, rolled white, staring
down.
But lo, something comes, approaching like a ghost.
The horizon is tipped with light, though not by the
lantern of the Sun.
A seam of fire splits the sky, descending parasite to
host,
though I am not quickened, too dumb to run.
Somewhere far ahead a lightshow erupts:
plumes of white light reign up, spirits, angels,
suspended far above for the sky to cup.
But soon they rain down in sharp deadly angles.
I dumbly twist my head from side to side:
all is noise and desperation, cries and flight.
And soon I hear a rumbling, a guttural cry -
like the bellows that come with my tender bite.
The noise increases, the horizon grows dark:
a grey wall of ash washes over the land;
shoulder to shoulder as myriad beasts in march,
a dark and infinite all-consuming hand.
As fire rains down, as stars fall from the sky,
I see a small furry creature scuttling to its hole.
I think, ‘I wouldn’t touch you with yours, why
do you run so with your puny bones and skull?’
As I look upon this creature, a vision flashes across my
mind:
I see a small shape ascending a tree,
and after eons and ages of geological time
it descends again, larger, with an axe on its knee;
and mirrored in the approaching vortex of swirl,
whose hot breath seems to lap at my skin,
I see it writ, I am
man: destroyer of worlds.
Then I’m taken into the obscure, dark wind.
