Beowulf: The Prequel the Creature

Beowulf: The Prequel

The creature crept out of the grimy deep

A slime-filled abode in a stench-filled sea.

Of remorse, of anger, of hatred unbound

They dwelled in this carefully drawn palace

That Cain built else God could find him

And take vengeance upon a long lineage.

Transforming his nature into primordial ooze

Cain pressed his anger into the peat floor

For years and years until from it sprung

Krindle, a monster whose blindness was kindness

Because to not be able to see meant not knowing

The ugliness on that face or the hideous wreck

That would from then forward haunt the hinterland.

Cain had long passed on, leaving behind his legacy

His anger and resentment failing to morph

He failed to transform himself into the likes of men

So the living legacy of he whose brother's blood

Stained both hands and his soul

Lived and breathed of the stench of decay

Krindle's corpus was mold and death

The last place life would be thought to exist

It was here Krindle dwelt long after ancestors passed.

Krindle set out determined to overcome

Burdened by her father's legacy of pain

Brimming with hope and desire that life instilled

Viewing the sunshine each day on the trees

Gleaming surface of the swamp enticing Krindle

To reach up towards the heaven and overcome

That which Cain had installed in her bloodstream

Krindle stretched and reached and grew large

Throughout eons and generations of men

Krindle changed and became endowed with organs of life

Child after child she created and each stronger than the next

Full of love full of hope and with every chance to believe

The children of Krindle became the swamp pulse

Nourishing nature and breeding life

Yet never could the children of Krindle leave

Their corpus connected glue-like to the earth

Eyes that seethed with envy when nearby would walk

Men, horses, mules, and rats

Their eyes deigning to see the children of Krindle

Averting their gaze when they walked by,

The children of Krindle cringed after a while

Their dreams dashed, the children of Krindle

They no longer hoped for love

The children of Krindle drew around them force

Strength of mountains stronger that swamp

Until after many more eons of growth and decay

The swamp thing became renowned for its hate

Children of Krindle absorbed putrefied death

Unable to thrive on life or joy they persisted

Tormented, became skillful indeed

Their position on the ground solid

Strong like mead

It was from this stench filled stew of doom

Of dashed dreams and destroyed hopes

That the forebears of Grendel formed

Wicked dreams instead of those lofty and good

Because when so many eons pass without relief

When all hoping is for naught

And the swamp kills dreams slowly

The children of Krindle had no choice but to kill

The happiness that once sprouted in their ancestral tomb.

Not wanting to kill but rather to set sail

On streams of love and waves of joy

The children of Krindle each one reached

Like lotus blossoms from mud ponds high

Toward the sky and toward the light

Blessed by sun and nourished by wind

They wanted only that they could have been

A flower that smiled upon each eye that saw

That saw the children of Krindle as children of God

Their tears did nourish further the land

The swamp teeming with life started to fester

Heat sweltering and searing the skin of creatures

All who would pass saw not the love filled flower

None who passed smelled anything but death

All who passed spat on them or stomped down

Squeezing out life before they had the chance to grow

They strived for beauty as fresh as birds

For petals soft as infant's cheeks

And for kisses scented like a blooming rose

Their love no different from that of a man

The children of Krindle would dream for a day

Of redemption, not decay