Arms Dealers

I do wonder if demons walk the Earth,
For some fit the role,
Not in scorched skin and horns,
But with infernal actions,
With a very human tint,
Supping on coinage rather than worship,

These jackboot and tie creatures,
Instead of fire and brimstone,
They breath ammunition casings and rocket pods,
Selling craters to the highest bidder,
They don’t demand blood for their rituals,
Just a few extra zeroes on an invoice,

In lieu of a spell or summoning,
Receive a revolution or coup,
Rifles and pistols and bombs,
Oh my,
These hellions can provide so much,
Rivers of red for stacks of green,

Don’t be so surprised,
You know what they say,
Some want to watch the world burn,
Others want to sell the gasoline.

Demons

Mankind has its beliefs,
That evil is some other place,
Hell or Gehenna or the Styx,
That demons are coming from without,
Corrupting the hearts and actions of men,

But don’t they see?
Mankind does no need to be pushed,
We are the demons,
We lack horns and pitchforks,
But still possess the means to exercise devilry,

The demons are already here,
Why else is doing good strenuous,
While doing evil is simple nature?

Apocrypha

We are atheneae,
A collection of tales and tomes,
And we decide how that knowledge is circulated,
And to whom,
Not all deserve your stories,
The lore of your ways,
That is earned,

Let your mind be apocrypha,
Esoteric to the outside world,
A library for the few,
Only the steadfast should know,
Let others guess and conjecture,
They are just priests of control,
Inquisitors and book-burners,

You know what you know,
You are your stories,
Your canon is yours alone,
It is written upon your bones,
Protect it as you would a child,
Let it survive,
Let it be apocrypha.

The Inquisition

I fear my head is occupied,
Forcibly taken with torch and brand,
By an inquisition,
A trio of critics,
They’re booming voices in my skull,
Wielding some moral high ground,
A superiority I can’t comprehend,

They censure every choice that I make,
Pointing at each idea with broiling pokers,
They attach spiked chains to every word I speak,
Delivering a verdict upon every thought,
And like the tyrants of old,
Regardless of the infraction,
They seem to favour the pyre.

Idolatry

I see those priests,
Clergy of every ilk,
Bowing their heads before stones,
Golden saints and bathomet statues,
Friends that don’t talk back,

They’re speaking in tongues,
Evoking this name or that,
Vocalised necromancy,
Who’s to say if their prayers are heeded,
The idols don’t respond,

After all,
How could they?
What is idolatry,
But talking to ghosts?

Infernal Liability

The people and clergy preach righteousness,
Blame all evil on some fallen angel,
As if all malice is inflicted upon them,
Coming from humanity though,
It drips with hypocrisy,
Like drool from a rabid dogs mouth,

It’s a deficit in responsibility,
Man does not approve of the devils work,
But it was they who gave him the job,
Gave him his horns,
With their idle hands and dark thoughts,
Arms deals and genocides,

But alas,
I say this not to absolve Lucifer,
Simply to enlighten,
That in all his infernal majesty,
He is but an accomplice,
And we are on his shoulder.

Pig Iron Priest

I heard tell of a cult,
They awoke from an awful dream,
Induced by some story book,
And built a priest out of pig iron,
A facsimile of an orderly man,
Fuelled by a furnace of white-hot delusion,

This automaton follows that same book,
On repeat he recites litany from his speaker mouth,
And baptises babes with his steel fingers,
This righteous robot,
An ivory robe stitched to his metal skeleton,
Cheap clanging between pews,

He was made from fear and thrifty deposit,
But mineral has no heart,
Iron holds no soul,
With no understanding of that book of myths,
Dare not look under his frock,
That’s where they put the plot holes.

Cult Of Worms

Throughout this thousand year war,
Numberless threads have been severed,
Both political and carotid,
Every fall gives rise to a cult,
A coven of worms,
A morbid congregation drawn together,
Each elongated creature both priest and disciple,

Each slain prince or pauper,
Becomes a temple of writhing masses,
Another prone parish of rot,
Erected on putrescent pillars,
Ribcages holding up their necrotic chapels,
Flesh is chewed away in ritual feasts,
Marrow supped like wine from bone,

These cultists are no fiends though,
It’s simply the way of the world,
Entropy and taxes being the only certainties,
Even the most triumphant and grand of us,
Shall be naught but a temple for the worms,
Little more than grisly alms,
Meat for the cult.

Green Creed

A virus has spread rapidly betwixt populations,
Not of the medical slant,
But one of conditioning,
That green corruption,
A religion of dollar notes and bankrolls,
Worship of excess,
We are converted at birth,
The nickel and cotton are the priests of this cult,
An emerald plague,

We submit ourselves to their prestige,
Their amassment,
It pervades every facet of our lives,
From the crib to the crypt,
The slum up to the manse,
Yet this is no sacred belief system,
It’s a creed laid upon viridian mandates,
It’s capitalism,
It’s greed or starvation.

Possession

I once spent an evening with an angel,
And heavenly she was,
Aside from some goetic tattoos here and about,
But something transpired,
A force took hold of her,

The conversation turned increasingly esoteric,
Her words became sulphuric heat,
Forked tongues in each breath,
Onyx veils covered her eyes,
Stifling any humanity,

Her face became a mask,
Contorted and almost pliable,
An unknown presence lay behind it,
A baneful weight,
A malevolence,

The air felt heavy in her presence,
Like breathing in spiteful ash,
I asked her what she was,
She grinned,
And those were no longer human fangs.