Across his lips are flecks of gore
like Bagdemagus king might have wished
from all my friends found wanting
by the strength of lion rampant, Nemean,
insoluble and mighty,
whose wrath and hateful breath inspired the dragons
as I read argued in a book so very long ago.
And now he graces the crown of that immortal,
Hercules or the Cypriot Lord-of-Beasts
with leonine posture and a mane to match
and the cub and club in each hand.
In another well-argued and should-be-ancient-now treatise
I read of that club and its affinity with the pillars of Ithaca
as Odysseus had brought or sent it home with him
alongside the armor of Achilles which graces
a statue that pales before Hector's majesty.
He does not bear the icon of the lion.
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