• Reflections from Sgt Ted Smout

    As his flying palace crashed,
    it’s red walls, crimson werewolves
    (born in Jericho
    and wandering too close to Lycaon’s orchestras)
    were ripped apart for souvenirs;
    I was there to witness the death
    of a demigod.

    As a God-fearing Nile
    flowed from the crevices
    between his purple hills,
    one last sound came forth:
    Caput!

    It was a fitting word;
    his voice,
    the echo of an aerial earthquake
    that once shook the globe’s foundations
    and forced thousands into fearful idolization,
    finally went silent.

    Three digits of burning camels
    stood as a silent symbol to his powers.
    They lie face down in the dirt, forever unmoving
    like twisted worshippers of his three-towered palace.

    But as the walls of his castle
    crumbled into carcasses of cold, callous steel,
    Lycaon-after-Lycaon claimed to have fed him
    his immortality
    and claimed he was a God only among insects.

    While a God among insects, a God he remained.
    And while they all fall silent with time,
    their purple lips stopping their incessant chatter
    and the Lycaon’s finally succeed,
    a God will always take more to kill
    than a single .303 bullet.