The Lead King

Would you name me King

At the cost of lives of men beneath me

Would you have them

Bare me on their backs

Kneel to me

Bloody in the dust and gravel

A king is worth his weight in lead

As he bathes in the river

From which his playthings drink

They become violent and stupid

The easier they anger

The easier they are swayed

To bleed one another and be bled

A fine sport for indolent leaders

Hideous and tremendous

The snarls and thrashings

Of these man-made beasts

And the cruel peel of mad laughter

As the Lead King sits atop his bone throne

Cracks a leather whip

Across the rolling tumult

From which rivulets run

Of filial blood of warring kin

For the feral Lead King

Mad hounds conditioned to lust

Fiendishly for plumes of red and white

The blooms of war and death

The Lead King strides amongst the carnage

Of bone and flesh to pick a trophy

From the wreckage a token is picked

A King may laugh at his pawns

May slap them away from a table to starve

But soon they will gnaw the man that feeds

What remains of him will be

made to bow and kneel and beg

Upon the earth and gravel

and shattered bones and scattered blood

The flowers of war

Of the men of whom he made beasts

And bleed in turn