Evil can rest behind a smiling face,
An amicable face,
Even a handsome face,
Charisma is the tool of a monster,
Just as a blade or garotte,
Yet more savage,
More cutting,
That was Ted,
Too many souls taken in by a friendly smirk,
A mask hiding thoughts of violation and murder,
Sugared words upon a serpents tongue,
Caught too late,
Highlighting the fell reality,
That fiends hide in plain sight,
Psychopathy cloaked in friendship,
That was Ted.
What turns a man into a demon?
What is it that breeds evil?
Is it a grim childhood?
The fists of the father,
Is it the occult?
A macabre interest too young,
Is it the narcotics?
That fun white powder,
An amalgamation of all these facets?
Whatsoever the cause,
This foul creature was unleashed,
A stalker in the night,
Dreaming of Disneyland,
Mutilating and violating all the way,
Thirteen souls claimed in red and screams,
By a devil wearing a human costume,
This horned beast was finally caught,
Brought low by his own arrogance.
Have you seen that man?
Stood plentifully bestrewn in crimson petals,
Within a garden of fresh corpses,
A crusader amongst broken innocents,
He’s a killer like any other,
But sanctioned by those lofty spires,
A good holy soldier,
In place of prayer,
He commits to flagellation,
Pain weaving betwixt discipline,
He hears voices in the dark,
They come from dusty books,
A tome that claims divinity,
A higher morality touted in its pages,
What began as a good and humble life,
Was dismantled piecemeal by fear and hate,
Xenophobia and bigotry written as commandments,
Seeing jihads in all directions,
Knives at the windows,
The sermons were twisted to command,
And so he strikes.
There’s a fine line between justice and crime,
And some walk that line haphazardly,
They choose not to defer to authority,
And take matters into their own hands,
Vengeance rarely looks like a courtroom,
And it is never a portrait,
More often it is spent cartridges in an alley,
Bullet and hammer and blade,
These are the tools of the vigilante,
These are the judge and jury,
And the will behind them is the executioner.
I’ve heard upon the grapevine,
Violence is the music of the streets,
When a body hits the tarmac,
And no saviour is around to hear it,
Does it make a noise?
I say yes,
Each thump and kick is percussion,
A backset to our tarmac orchestra,
Each cracked rib is a shrill trumpet,
The screams are background static,
It’s a painful song,
Played by novices in hooded shirts,
They’re proud of their work nonetheless,
Perpetrators scurrying away is their crescendo,
Followed by applause and gurgles.
You know that old tale,
Tale as old as time,
Boy meets girl,
Boy compliments girl,
Girl thanks him politely,
Girl continues with her life,
Boy thinks about it for days,
Boy gets obsessed,
Boys mind gets grimmer,
Boy stalks girl for months,
If boy can’t have girl nobody can,
Boy sees girl again,
Girl does not know,
Girl has had a long day,
Boy follows girl home,
Girl has a shower,
Boy peers in through the shades,
Boy readies a claw hammer,
And the rest,
As they say,
Is history,
Criminal history.
I heard the shots,
The cracks in the wind,
Approaching thuds and slugs,
Sounds of manmade thunder,
I felt the shrapnel pierce my lungs,
Iron colliding with rib and flesh,
White-hot and dire,
Exit-wound pending,
I felt the pavement on my face,
With my body bag colleagues,
Overseen by a man of ill intent,
Frigid eyes behind a pump action,
But I did not feel any fear,
Because it was on a silver screen,
A report of another tragedy,
On the world’s own streets,
On Plymouth’s own streets.
Walking through these cold streets,
All I see is grey,
Save for the colours of demons,
Hovering behind human shoulders,
Feral spirits whispering into human ears,
Cupped hands beside unknowing brains,
Sweet nothings that feign sweetness,
One suggests taking that crones handbag,
Another sings the praises of broken windows,
Yet another gives you invitations to every speak-easy,
These invisible spectres suggest the worst of vices,
Pushing a dark narrative,
They are over all of our shoulders,
Wearing the shrouds of angels,
Whispering,
Whispering,
Suggesting.
Ofttimes we confer our lives to men of medicine,
Hippocratic Samaritans,
Truly worthy of our trust,
Yet once this trust was broken,
Reduced to residue in a syringe,
By a foul miscreation of fate,
On the island kingdom he resided,
A creature with eyeglasses and a kindly gaze,
This monster in a white coat,
Human anthrax,
Where he practiced,
The neediest of us fell,
Where he called,
Toxins invaded innocent bloodstreams,
Grandads and grandmas,
Taken by foul chemical artifice,
They needed him,
And yet he slaughtered them,
Casually he spoke in the sound of needles,
Smiled kindly with venom behind teeth,
Aged though these victims were,
They could still have had decades,
But with him they had minutes.
That grin,
Oh that grimace,
Wielded by that walking corpse,
Clad in leather and chain,
It hungers to tear asunder meat,
Meat that still struggles,
Those lips still drip with cruelty,
Salivating,
Salivating,
Desiccated flesh splitting in a curve,
Joy formed with painful contortion,
Each bronzed tooth telling a tale of murder,
Poems of crime upon each breath,
A scarred tongue dancing on graves behind,
This is a maw of evil,
This grin,
It’s an avatar of death,
And it’s directed at you.
WorldofHarley 