Author Information
The Vulmandir
None had ever bested us.
We, who were beyond rebuttal
were manufactured and
mesmerized by commoners
and set in one direction with
one purpose at a time.
From beneath we'd bury back
by blazing every mote of air,
every free and able space;
each man, each woman
who wore the colors we opposed.
Suddenly, they tucked us in,
and from our cracks beneath their feet
we poured like urchin toward the heights
as soles of boots did burn and scold
against the poured embankment.
While the blanket spread its death
and warmth, we fought our panic
and our foes did find us soon.
Collected, we then forced apart
all things, all people and
all constructs and their strata.
We do as we were made to do:
gorging on the dirty air as
we channeled hatred from
this distant place we had dreamt of.
But the many were just more than we,
who'd sunder they so ceaselessly;
informed by ours against their mantra,
chanted as they did seek our end.
The tidal wave of mortar, magma
and steel and stone emergent from
their mouths and beds that house the whole
of worth that they had gathered then.
Its weight was pressed upon our heads
and it was too much for rending thrice.
In hours we were widdled down
to matchstick men in drizzled ponds;
granted mercy in exchange
for our imminent departure.
Against ourselves, against our own;
we were perceived as threats and holy
smotes that left a pillared smoke
in wake of all we couldn't take.
Those who'd come, divided, took
a sampling of all our ranks -
like gluttons at a feast bones,
adorned by corpses, rotting, parceled.
And taken toward the other lands,
where paltry men once sought our guts,
we're flung aboard a soldier's hut
and told to be just as we were.
We would be deployed again
with a novel sense that we'd done wrong
in name of right or something close,
while we destroy our remaining brethren.
