As far as a man can peer thro’ the mist,
Sitting on watch, looking over a wine dark sea,
So long is the stride of the god’s thundering horses…
Homer
Evil Empire
A terrible change is come: I see a cloud
Brooding over the valley like the wing
Of a destroying angel dark & dread
CL Reddell
Midgard play’d host to the Leviathan;
As Hydra Demagorgons held the land,
From ocean trench surfaces the Kraken,
It’s tentacles encreeping under sand;
To stand apart,
Sucking the islands dry
Of harvest, hope & heart, while watchful Wyvrns fly.
Satanus call’d a grand counsel
To discuss the growing war,
Along the high road into Hell
Rode the company of Thor,
Announced by the doom-peeling bell,
Led thro th’ivory door,
Presented ‘fore the princely throne of bone,
Beast bids, “Th’Aesir shall Pyerun fight alone.”
“We will be strong Lord Lucifer
& compensate thy flanks…”
Lone warrior in black armour
Strode clanking thro’ the ranks,
“My name is Barbarossa, for this battle offer thanks.”
Pandemonium
Warring Gods
The wind suffers of blowing,
The sea suffers of water,
The fire suffers of burning
Laura Riding
Mars dons a breastplate of bronze bright gleaming,
Sharpens his broadsword, polishes his shield,
Lowers his helm, velvet sunburst teeming,
Then sets out marching to the battlefield;
A trompet blast
Summons his snarling hounds,
The flock to his feet fast with long, muscular bounds.
Ra whispers ancyent sorcery,
Tis the sacred call to arm,
Round a rare & regal valley
Lilts the chorus of that charm –
Ragged mummies march steadfastly
Below this locust swarm –
As thro’ their ranks strides a Scorpion King,
Those howling hounds reduced to whimpering.
Battle ensues! tooth, axe & claw
Thro’ mummy-mass Mars wades,
Tears rags & gore, but still they roar,
Apep slain by Ra’s blades –
Mars flees by flying chariot as day’s dread battle fades.
Africa
A Season in Hell
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Balrog, chief cause & culprit of these rhymes,
Tours the seven circles of Satanus,
Meph’ found him with the broken-hearted crimes,
“Our lord bids thee return to Cocytus!”
With hugeous urge
Of his wing gigantic,
Hades sways to the surge rippling forth concentric.
Roaming over dismember’d souls
Astrew the fiery cavern,
Yon Caina, Judeccan falls,
Lands by the Anti-Heaven,
Striding along skeletal halls
Toward the cloven one –
The pair well met, aft converse serpentine
They saunter thro’ dungeons incarnadine,
Where imps collect the crimson goo,
Long in labours wheeling,
When these first few drops from the Jew
Weepeth from the ceiling,
Ghouls sing Carmen Cruenta to the crude Doom Bell’s peeling.
Pandemonium
The Vanity of Jove
Arise & take thine ease,
For thou art lord; & these
Are but as sprinkled dust before thy power
Lord de Tabley
Thro’ realms empyrean flew Gabriel,
Jove lay luxuriant ‘neath floscule fan,
Unint’rested as minions of Hell
Spread suffering & helplessness thro’ man;
“Your majesty,”
Th’archangel duly bow’d,
“I have a dream for thee,” & conjured up a cloud…
“Tis one shared by those lunatics,
Idolators of Hitler…”
Across quintessence picture flicks
Of some darken’d chiasa,
“Where there should be a crucifix
There hangs the swastika…”
For Gabriel, it seem’d, eternity
Pass’d pleading to his master’s vanity.
At last was heard that sovran voice
Run thro’ rushing waters,
“Cast is my choice, send the envoys
To the Saintly Quarters,
We are to war, send for the steeds, summon my Sky Daughters!”
Divinnia
Defeating Valhalla
Rally around to the glory of our time!
The blood surges in our veins,
We die for the sake of our land
Aboul-Qacem Echebbi
The brave Aesir, in battlegear assembl’d,
Launch’d on the backs of swans Siberian,
Form soaring rainbow streaks, so resembl’d
A swarm of meteors kasabian;
Wave after wave
Of dead Asgard’s heroes
Rush to a second grave where Pyerun’s sylph-suit glows.
From Heaven, Saint Volodomyr
Flew down with angelic guard,
FEAR floated thro’ the rude Aesir;
Men’s panicking minds fresh marr’d
By Barbarossa’s disappear,
Down the road to Asgard –
Protected by Satanic riders four,
The battle left to all who fought with Thor.
The twisting saint sweeps down & spurns
Thor’s sky-twisting weapon –
Mjolnir returns, but handle burns,
Dropp’d like relay baton
Arms-naked Thor’s heart pierced by blades deepest plunged by Pyerun.
Asia
Gryphon Dawn
Love held them up to the universe
they listened to the stars. These days
poets are locked in their machines
Abbas Beydoun
Uncle Sam harbours at the Half-Moon Bay
With war engines & eagles for the flight,
Gwyddion leads them on their lofty way
Amidst the mountains clad in snowflake white;
Britannia,
Most splendid banqueteer,
Has spread a grand dinner as battle draweth near.
While thunder-clouds rumble & pour,
St£rling & Buck$ recanting,
Employ an age-old astral lore,
Middle of a magic ring,
Where lions give a mighty roar,
& eagles beat their wing,
Sharp lightning struck those stone grey druid rods,
Great gasps of wonder rush’d throughout the gods…
Before them stood the great Gryphon,
Wing sleek, majestic maned,
O prime weapon, the stallion,
Auld oracles ordain’d,
Lit by an irridescent gleam, the divine blessing gained.
Stonehenge
Holy Waters
The sea shall seethe like boiling casserole,
Change colors, taking on unnatural form,
Showing its ill will at full blast to all
Ausiàs March
Uncle Sam sat enthroned with Liberty
Upon the voyage East to Albion,
Entertain’d elegantly pleasantly
By his royal emissary, Dagon;
Relaxed, despite
The stern vein of that day,
How soon the deadly fight, how soon the frightul fray?
Little did those deities know
That out of the stagnant Styx,
A fleet of foul Sea-Devils flow,
So vicious in vilesome mix,
The brave Mermen could only slow
The foe with eye-glow fixt
Upon a shimmering, sun-brush’d surface,
Up to that barge they roar in dorkish race!
Neptune appears & checks progress
With trident, crown & shield,
Grim devils press their gruesomeness,
But Gods will rarely yield,
Soon corpses float about him in a liquid battlefield.
Oceania
Stone to Dust
There was a corpse outside
It was a fine and cruel noose
coming out the corpse’s mouth
Ramón Palomares
Mars mumbles homewards to Olympus Mount,
Wounds attended by prancing succubi,
From magic flute the notes of loving fount,
From luscious Venus with a rush of sigh;
Softly seduced
She guides him from the war,
With one kiss were reduced Bellona & Ishtar.
Odin withdrew to Valhalla,
Multitudinous the throng,
Brought the Aesir all together,
Speaking truths with wounded tongue,
“From both East & West comes terror,
Our time will not be long,
Step before me captains of each legion
That march’d not east to subjugate Pyerun!”
He turn’d unto that troop of horse,
The pale, white, black & red,
“Take thee swift course to fetch a force
That stands in the good stead
Of our friend Lord Satanus…” hard hooves to their Master sped.
Asgard
For Liberty
No subject for immortal verse –
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.
Cecil Day Lewis
Between the mists that cloak immortal spheres
& realms of aether soak’d illuminous,
The twinkling of a candelabrum nears,
Behold, the city ever glorious!
O’erall sate Jove
In regal diety,
While singing angels wove gimcrack’d marqueterie.
The highest hordes of Heaven glow,
Pure & perfect was the path
To the foot-hills of Vesuvo,
To Babababagorath;
Seven heads leave off Averno,
Seven tongues spit serpent-wrath,
At Seraphim, whose bows of golden fires
Loose arrows – thro’ Hells gates the Beast retires.
Towards the long, horn’d, thick-scal’d tale
Gabriel took keen aim,
A whoosh, a wail, a gushing flail,
The Dragon maim’d & lame…
Angels smear’d in its dragonsblood, then stepp’d into the flame.
Hell
Axis & Allies 