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The Three Kings of Folly:
The Angelic King

by Jack Merwin

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Dying King
The Widowed King
The Angelic King

As I ravage and burn these lands of Nod
and rape the royal progenitor blood,
I stand amidst a sea of slain hymens
bathing in the blood rays of my Crimson Sun.
As Evil begot, so Evil shall end.
But, as I break the line of primal man,
the Sun besets my ears with beams of red.
All is not well, it proclaims in whispers.
The unity of King, Sun and the Land
is left unfinished, hollow, and worthless.
Ride further East to the realm of dreaded Hao
and claim all his works as wholly your own.

So I summon once more a horde of mass,
a wretched flowing tide of sword and bone
and march furthest East from mythos Eden
to the phlegm’d pastures of the fallen Hao,
lord of stained trees and little broken skulls
where meridians of burning bronze lie
pressed on cooked fibers of scalded tissue,
a world made for petty, morbid muses
whom I shall mold into a clay harem
as was designed for my divine prerogative,
for I am Samael’s scion deified.

My levy crosses river Hebdomad
where the armies of Hao await in force:
emaciated imps with frugal horns,
a field of starved bellies and swelling guts
packed into endless rows of macabre squares
yet too weak to raise their feeble weapons,
for Hao judged all milk was his to suckle.
So at the site of my scarlet legion
they cast aside their arms and bow to me
as retribution to all of their woes.
But their rusting steel glares off Crimson Starlight.
Who is Hell to ask mercy from Heaven?
The Demons to plead before the Angelic?
“Turn the lot into wet, slopping meat!” it said.
And so amidst throngs of mewling guffaws,
I make good on the silent crimson creed
and eviscerate their gored paper flesh.
A cacophony of throbbing cleavers
and pulsing pikes descend upon the spawn.
I snort down their mishumored blood and grin
as purification begins anew.

My Sun cools dimly above the slaughtered
as I enter the shack of tyrant Hao,
a meek little hovel of damp and musk
with cracked and filthy linoleum floors
upon which squats a vagrant filthy hermit
with tangled, knotted barbed wire for hair
and a beard so thin as to blend with air
crumpled and folding over in his lap,
his arms outstretched, his hands cupped like a bowl,
his body still like a beggar statue.
“Your legacy and works are mine,” I say,
“if any foulness spawned from your loins they—”

“Okay.”

Dirt and skin flake off as he looks at me.
A saccharine smile besets his lip,
its sanguinary touch long forgotten.
“Your throne” — I speak once more — “where does it lie?”

“Gone. I am it. Forever rotted.
Burned for fuel. Roasted my blood
and cast it as feed among the grass.
But all is well.
For you shall take my works
and sit upon a throne
far greater than mine.”

I shiver as my cheeks begins to scorch,
the molded roof now a blackened void
that sucks all light and hollows my eyes out.
But there! A small pinprick of crimson glow
pulses and dilates to infinity
beating my face like a drum with its heat
my bones they blacken in baptized fire.
Oh no. No stay away! Get away from me!
I am scion! Part of the divine!
My will is truth made eternal.
But my soul it burns away
as I am consumed by
this Sun of Sin!


Copyright © 2021 by Jack Merwin

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