Fighting Angels

Fighting Angels (poem): Albrecht painting of the battle of Alexander at Issus

When nation spars with nation
Their envoys snarl and hiss
Tear into each other
With all of Hell and havoc’s fury
The fire of Heaven on
an altar of earth
and only G-d can help the
man who bids
to fight with angels.

Fell beasts cast down
from hallowed heights
Lunging with a flash of jagged teeth
Fangs as shards of sapphire
abyssal maws and eyes which blaze with
feral fire
Heaven’s dobermen
Though even Lucifer
was once the teacher’s pet

Those vicious stars war
in their midst the flashing hosts
glimpsed as supernovae through a stormcloud
As bloody claws of bone
rip tempest through the
tapestry of now and later,
shatter the
solipsistic eclipse of reality
like a dirty mirror.

And angels don’t die quietly
spitting and arcing like
downed powerlines caught
in a hurricane.
Screaming comets of whisperflame and
blinding ichor
So loud, no one can hear it
save the man unbound
by stars, drenched
savage blue and bleeding gold,
there to finish off a meteor

This is the war of man
and shadowed brilliance
Fought above whatever
husk of ground we and another
lay claim to,
our swords unsheathed,
our agents bear their teeth
and lay the firmament
to waste.
For everywhen you clash with men,
you take arms against their angels.

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