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| by Stephen Cole |
Sunday.
The Lion has a great passion for women. The Lion is a bleeding heart — wrapped in thorns, pierced through, engulfed in flames. Great jaws closing on firm, succulent breasts and thighs. The Lion is a war hero, finely decorated, much respected and little loved. The Lion is a great soldier and murderer, and these his victims: taste, humility, transvestites, thieves, mothers. He tears his chest open around the flower of his sentiment and wallows in his own depravity.
Mud.
The Lion falls from grace, forever and always. He is always out of bounds. He is a convenient monster. He is the terror of the suppressed, the endless fury of the normal against the freak, the outsider, the outcast. The Lion is made to be punished, redeemed, punished again.
And his name?
A wild figure defending society. Military victory. Stone aping flesh, red as the blood that flecks his lips, red as the mulberry, red as the night.