the death machine's glow

the song of blood and thunder

give me your words, pretty thing,
so that I may grind them up between my teeth,
slough the flesh from their shining bones,
and spit the skins back at you.

i am a maw, pretty thing,
and i sing the song of blood and thunder—
i fester, i audition the cordial rot—
i drive my mind mad with yearning,
beseeching the great hum of iron to see me,
for I long to join the death machine.

there is no bloodletting I will not justify.
there is no death that i see any longer,
only extraction, only energy—
all life is an artifact, a sacrificial stone,
whose slaughter i offer for power—
thy magic is bloodful, whose origin I know is death—
so sing me thy sirenic song,
and lead me down into that fate which I would have run to anyway.

procure me thy hearts, you worm
for thy hearts are fodder—
you need them not where you go next.

instead, I shall hold them, beating, 
up on the highest dais
drinking them dry between sanguine-stain teeth and rosy lips,
disgorging blood from my gnashing mouth,
tasting only the drops that call to me, while leaving the others go,
for waste is waste,
and you are waste,
and so I let the poison overflow…

come to me now, in the gallery of demons, pretty thing,
where each merchant sings the song of blood and thunder,
where each beauty sold was born in the wake of blood and thunder
where the ripe, gushing fruit of the great bloodletting 
looms over thy pretty head—
an endless market of artifacts—
each made in the exchange of toil and loss—
each exuding the stench 
of the cog and the shadow and the algorithmic pestilence—
each a keepsake of the churning hum of death…

this is the place here, pretty thing, in the very exchange of pretty things,
in the consortium of pretty things,
where you may taste all delights under heaven,
where you may feel all pleasures heretofore unknown
where you may be a pretty thing among many.

spinning inside the death machine’s glow,
pretty things is all you’ll ever know.

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More by Roman Gamourtian

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