Captain Cur (England)

Small wooden idols with splintered skin decorate
the sloping tread way leading to the temple's hall.
Candle flames bedeviling eyes shift shadow shapes
as fledglings dance on grotesque walls.

Organ pipes rise, blending keys sound papal hymns, clear
spiral notes wavelength lick the ceilings skull framed dome.
Angel child's brown budding wings sparse halo glow; tearing,
crawls painful lengths to the altars hewed round stone.

Delirious, imagining myself on the Malevolent,
unnerved by this nightmarish lineal procession,
I unsheathe my sword awed by its pent begging tip
slaughtering witches chanting in ritualistic perfection.

I would not relent;
I would destroy their coven stables.
I heard cursive whooping cries
emanating from macabre
forms born of demigods,
fed the blood of angels,
with cloven feet and leaf tipped ears amassed
within the throng's confusion, charged,
conjuring swollen sepulcher skies
railing hatred in those around me.

I held my ground, my will remonstrated
and I withdrew inside till all was still.
I quieted my temper and calmed my speech,
when as a child I killed my father
and learned how to summon
the unbridled fury of the beast.