SCAPEGOAT

SCAPEGOAT, by Byrn Hammond

I stuck a finger in his eye,

The human I first took to eat.

I hummed to him a lullaby

And nibbled on his hands and feet.

 

**

 

They live by music, in the hall.

Glad hymns celebratory

Of every creature, great and small,

But they have forgotten me.

 

**

 

My mother said we are outcast,

Ghouls, goblins, ogres, elves, Cain’s kin –

The first to murder, and the last,

Our instinct his original sin.

 

**

 

They sing sad songs of exiles, men –

But exiles never have our face.

Laments and sentiment for them –

Not us, disfigured from God’s grace.

 

**

 

They sing of family and feud,

Of torn and tangled loyalty,

Emotion like a falcon mewed,

Violence let fly in tragedy.

They think love and hate are human food.

 

**

 

I have my cause, I have my wrong,

I have the monster folk, my own.

I’ll make them sing a Grendel song

Of blood and viscera and bone.

 

**

 

My schedule is to eat a Dane

At one a night on my campaign.

 

**

 

They believe us stupid brutes

With none of their high functions, no –

No comradeship, no kindness, fruits

Of God and light and blessing, so

I tell them blow by blow.

 

**

 

Hatred sends me to the fight,

Also pity of things that crawl

And mewl and gibber in the night

Where is no love at all.

 

**

 

Against my solitude I’ve got

Their crafty hands and crunchy feet

And glaucous eyes like water shot

With the sunlight’s heat.

 

**

 

The scapegoat is a precious beast.

Your sins are heaped upon his head

And he is driven from the feast

To wander deserts of the dead.

 

**

 

If he were not, you’d have to see

Those moors and marshes that you fence,

Your own monstrosity.

He lets you keep your innocence.

 

________________________________________

Bryn Hammond lives in a coastal town in Australia, where she likes to write while walking in the sea. Her historical Amgalant novels closely follow the Secret History of the Mongols, a 13^th-century life of Chinggis Khan. Sword & Sorcery in New Edge Sword & Sorcery, Beating Hearts & Battle-Axes. Novella Waste Flowers out soon from Brackenbury Books. Other Beowulf pieces in ergot. and on Bryn’s website amgalant.com.