An Ancient Smell

I smelled an ancient smell today - and I shivered. Don't know where it came from or what it could have been. But the feeling of sickening dread and chilling fear it engendered in me was a terror I had never felt before. If despair has a smell, then this was it.

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Foul stench of battlefield rot
Pukes into my nostril;
The tears of what men have wrought
Makes man so very hostile.

An Ancient Smell is this
Of blackened blood and piss;
With mine own eyes I saw
True reach of the devil's claw.

In the heat of human fury
Lies a baring of the soul;
'Tis insanity to hurry
One's fate to the buried hole.

High crimes and misdemeanors
I made my daily bread;
I tortured all the screamers
And filled the rest with dread.

Hell's child channels his wrath
Staining flowers with bloody bath;
Wallowing in the dreams I spilt,
Thinking of the dead man's guilt.

Running up to mountain streams
To cleanse me of my victims' screams;
The Tree and Rock and Holy River
Give chilling pause to consider.

Fallen soldiers are the leaves,
Disconnected from the trees;
Barren cold, the branches die
Never to feel the living sky.

A thousand lifetimes finally ends
No more chances to make amends;
I spread my arms out to the wind,
Fearing of the times I sinned.

Dreams of loss run down my cheek
Believing in the love I seek;
Time comes for me to die
The apple of no one's eye.

Cry not if I'm ripped asunder,
My heart did surely rape and plunder;
Nature's heaven calls me back
For the breaking of my back.

Ghosts of killings past
Take revenge and hold me fast;
I know this Ancient Smell
Comes to claim my soul for hell.
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Everything we are will never die...