The gods of violence

We are the gods of violence
and we cannot retreat
we have the power to create
but we will only destroy
we are venal and irascible
we are almost dead but we will never die

We are Anubis and Murugan
we are Horus and Loki
we are Baal and Ashtaroth
we are Maher-shalal-hash-baz
we are the fear you taste at night
the revelation and the perdition
we are the fury and the verisimilitude
but we are prisoners
trapped
in a one bedroom Council flat
on the 34th floor of a tower block in Kennington
and we can never leave

We are the glory and the absolution
but now our currency is spent and dreadful

We were the lust of crime and conflict
but now
we are in debt to the gods of mercy
a debt we may never repay

We would befoul and defenestrate
but now we have no coin for the meter

We were the shadow and the valley of darkness
we were mammon
we built Megiddo from your tears
and Persepolis from your bones
but we were advised to invest in a Keogh plan
and equipment trust certificates
and flat income bonds
and interrogation devices
and we relied on amortisation
and margin calls
we overbought because we were told to overbuy
and we up ticked when we should have hypothecated
and hypothecated when we should have up ticked
and leveraged when we should have refinanced
and used Dollar cost averaging
when we should have used depletion accounting
and now we sit shivering in our own effluence
and hide from the knock on the door

We were gods
we were your gods
and now
we are the lunatics
and we are the asylum