Archaics

Barefaced devils squat alone,
Scattered as baboons on cliffs,
Not actually browsing but

Feeling sorry for themselves.
None of them has followers,
Though many once had many.

Subtler devils invaded
Their troops, seducing away
All their former sycophants,

Their devotees and hopeful
Mobs who gathered for a chance
At some righteous violence.

The subtler devils spun tales
In which they were heroic
And somehow also victims,

And they only bared their fangs
As means to illustration.
They faced forward, kept charming,

Kept their ornamentations
Narrative and symbolic,
Kept their rumps mostly covered.

Now the bare-faced devils find
They’re has-been alpha demons,
And shame has discovered them.