Dwight Humphries


Musing of the Demon

My form is elegant, the formulas
Which release my might are severe
And elegant.  I sit enthroned
On this island waiting to do my task.

With cunning artifice artisans of destruction
Have made me; it took the ability of men's
Perversions to dig me from Earth and refine
My strength.  I can only burst my bonds
Under certain configurations; in me is
The subtle puzzle of the crystals
For potential violence.

In the dark I am taken uncrowned
And inert to one of their silver birds.
With awe I am winched into its belly,
An egg of malevolent purpose.
An umbilical for my birth is attached
So they may know my heart.

Power is applied and the winged chariot
Is aloft, the island left behind.
The chosen priest makes the last-minute
Magicks and I am complete.

We drone in the dark over the ocean's expanse
Where great whites swim but their violence
Is innocence for they are flesh and my life
Is long.  A new dawn comes, another land
Of men looms on the horizon; all is made
Ready by the priest who shall determine
My flight.  They have the misguided hope
My release will eclipse the jiin of war
Already loose.

The time is come, the bird releases me
And I feel flight.  Drawn by natural law,
I search the ground with my inner mechanical
Marvels for the proper point.

It is coming--I smile in malicious delight,
Let there be light and my radiance batters
And burns the homes of men.  Man, woman,
Child alike evaporates under my glory,
Turns to elemental vapor, chaotic as the beginning;
Nothing is no longer the same--it is 8:16 a.m.

First published in slightly different form in

Deathrealm, Issue #10, Fall 1989.

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