The change is short, though painful – what is worse
Is that which follows – hours of degradation
My mind and body twisted by the curse
And harnessed to a foul imagination
Whose cruel deeds, too dreadful to rehearse
Confirm my sickened spirit’s desecration.
My victims are the weakest, and their cries
Would rouse a tender conscience in a stone
But look, my chickens, deep into my eyes
The hunger there will eat you to the bone.
The tide is loosed, and when compassion dies
The hunter’s heart will beat for blood alone.
I’ve borne the mark since history began
And walk in hell until the moment when
The fever’s run its moon-allotted span
And lets me scurry shameful to my den
To shed the hateful shape of demon Man
And, freed of evil, be a wolf again.
Simon MacCulloch lives in London. He is a regular contributor to Reach Poetry, The Dawntreader and Sarasvati.
