Poems from the 12-Hour Poetry Contest: Old Gods, Ethan McGuire

Ethan McGuire is a healthcare cybersecurity professional and a writer of essays, fiction, poetry, reviews, and translations who lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana with his wife and their two children.

Old Gods

After Matthew Buckley Smith

 God sits upon His throne, that golden height,

And holds worlds in His palms, withholds His might.

 

The Muses by His side both come and go

And whisper in our ears the good we know.

 

Old Satan rules the bowels of Earth’s black flame

And wields his damned, wild reign, the King of Shame.

 

The Furies scour the land and boil men’s blood

With coals—and with knives loose a crimson flood.

 

The Fates dispense and cut threads they contrive

And make men meet mean ends or come alive.

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