I am calling upon all my monsters and beasts out there,
on the glimmering eyes and the silent footsteps in the dark;
There are few of us left, soon we will disappear forever.
Well, at least we have lived to the fullest, and made our mark!
Brothers, do you recall when the grasslands reached to the horizon,
and the deafening roar of countless wings overhead?
Back when Rome was a village, and Britain – the Emerald Island;
before we gave up on our future, and buried our dead.
Where have you been hiding? In nightmares and in fairytales?
On the pages of fantasy books, and in video games?
Barely scraping along in the wild, and working retail? –
Trying hard to forget what we were once, and our shame.
I will not let you have it your way! I will not let you go.
You are all that is left from the battles that we fought and lost.
I have made it my calling to reach out to every lost soul,
Offer each wraith a home, and a cloak to each bare-threaded ghost.
We are ashes and dust of the Inquisition fires.
We have seen our loved ones ran down and burned at the stake.
We were here to witness the rise and the fall of empires.
And you, humans, are set on repeating all our mistakes.
You extend your lifespans, but without death – there is no progress.
You are toying with plagues. You are aiming your guns at the stars.
You deny our magic, yet meddle with magical forces.
It’s as if you are eager to fade in extinction, like us.
If you had seen the wars we once fought– Oh, the glorious slaughter!
Our endless rebellions without a purpose in sight….
None of that matters now; it is ash that’s been washed off by water,
leaving only an ache in the wounds, and a void inside.
There is so much we could teach you, if you’d only listen,
but you will remain deaf to our words until it is too late.
Like teenagers, young races don’t care for ancient wisdom;
satisfied to exist in their ignorance, and in their hate.
Well, you cannot erase us. Our flesh has been mixed in with soil.
Dying screams of our women and children have seeped into stone.
It is our blood you seek every time you are drilling for oil,
and beneath the asphalt of your suburbs are fields of our bones.
Orange glow of a campfire and pale electrical glow –
both cast our shadows, as our legends unfold.
We are the archetypes that exist within every man’s soul,
and we will live forever, or as long as stories are told….
Copyright @ Julie Deshtor 2017
Julie Deshtor 