CONQUISTADOR

Conquistador, now the Angel of Death
comes seeking your heart of stone,
is it cursed by the slightest hint of remorse
for the countless cultures misunderstood
that you've razed to molten ash?

Remember your past - that corner of Spain
that, for you, was never enough;
until raging avarice eclipsed humanity
to incite a full-scale insurrection
that exploded across the globe.

To build an empire you would stop at nothing,
so conned from the Aztecs their gold.
Their simple ways incensed you so
and architecture dedicated to unknown Gods
disturbed you, so had to go.

Terrified of your might, they fled and hid
behind barricaded windows and doors.
Such cowardice made you despise them more:
fired instinct to crush any weak resistance,
along with their pointless lives.

So you rode on a brutal rampage and torched
every straw-clad dwelling, then averted
your face from the heat of the raging furnace -
until a piteous sobbing reached your ears.
You looked back...and your stomach lurched.

There beside the embers a cowering young girl,
smoke blackened, gazed up at you.
You lifted her up and felt her tremble.
Her soft helpless body clung to yours,
silently for mercy begging.

Something alien touched you then:
compassion...and a need to be seen
as something other than what you were.
So you lifted her up onto your stallion
and from the carnage galloped away.

Soon the odour of burning flesh
was no more than the guilty recall
of a past in denial and the promise to come -
if she would only believe your lying tongue
when her saviour you claimed to be.

Well, you possessed her body but not so her Soul -
that part of her seemed to know better.
In fact, the thing you now desperately craved
had already perished in the hellish flames,
along with all those she had loved.

So what you held then was empty and cold.
In frustration, you struck her hard.
Was it that for once you had no control
over someone who aroused in you a love
that for the first time wasn't carnal alone?

Or perhaps it was the image of molten ash
in your conscience insidiously smouldering
that drove you to run her through with your sword...
then cry like a baby as her dying eyes
transfixed you in their basilisk stare.

Illustration courtesy of Google Images.