My Own Private Ulysses: If Books Could Kill

If Books Could Kill

What if this world were flipped and books could kill? 

For real, like Monty Python’s deadly joke,            

That left the Hun laughing till he lay still,           

Man’s one-sided war would go up in smoke.                   

From old ashes, arises a killer,                       

Whose name’s the same as Rome’s Odysseus.        

Atilla, Genghis, every blood spiller,                       

All rolled into one Phoenix Proteus.                        

Ulysses’ hydra-headed arts of war:

Laugh and riddles, PSYOPS, vulgarity

All marshalled, so this invincible corp.

Kills barbarity with hilarity.

It would be such a sweet and fitting sight:      

Brave book burners, for once, in a fair fight.

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Same trench time, same charred channel.