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Wyrd: Grendel's Lament
A senile Anglo-Saxon people
wrote long tales of
my evil creeping from moors
raiding the mead-halls
of Hrothgar's Danes and crushing
pagan thanes with my
huge hands. I still remember
Denmark, heathen land
with its gods of Asguard
and the kind dreams of
Valhalla and fears of Muspellhiem.
They called me "seed
of 'Ymir" or "child of Loki"--
later they told their
children I was a "descendent of Cain"
I recall that Geat
Earl, Beowulf, Higlac's man,
who sailed across from
Sweden on his own personal
Ragnarok. I still feel
the sharp pain as he ripped
the limb that no
sword even could. Remembered,
we are both--In
the Herot mead-hall where
my are hung listless
and on the tongues of scups and bards.
We are remembered,
as lukewarm textbook literature and
stupid old myths.
Christian plagiarists, who crushed
more thanes than I
wrote about us leaving out
Odin, Freya, and Tiu.
These pious scribes unabashedly added
"Glory to god" and
various other trite, godly sermons
to our legend.
The Gods die, but man lives, and
as Beowulf, himself, said:
"Let fate unwind as it must."
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