The Vision of Moloch
And I beheld, the King clothed in smoke,
whose crown is a furnace,
whose scepter is a chain.
He calls himself Father of the People,
yet he devours their children for fire.
His throne is built of contracts,
his altar of coin and blood.
He whispers in the marrow of men:
Obey, and you will be safe.
Kneel, and you will be fed.
Fear, and you will belong.
The multitudes answer his call,
for he stirs their hungers,
inflames their envy,
multiplies their terror.
They march in chains of their own making,
and call it loyalty.
But his kingdom is rot:
palaces sinking into ash,
gold rusting into worms.
For Moloch rules not by truth,
but by the echo of their dread,
the gnawing of their desires.
The Birth of Moloch
In the beginning, men trembled at thunder
and bowed to the shadow of flame.
They built idols of stone and wood,
but their fear required flesh.
Out of their dread, Moloch arose—
a King crowned by terror,
his diadem hammered from screams,
his robe woven from envy and hunger.
The people called him Father,
yet he devoured their children.
They called him Protector,
yet he armed them against one another.
They called him Law,
yet his judgment was appetite.
He was enthroned not by gods but by men,
not by angels but by the multitude’s panic.
From their fear he was born,
and by their fear he ruled.
And his laughter filled the earth with smoke,
for every sacrifice was his banquet,
and every trembling prayer his throne.
Proverbs of Moloch, the Cruel King
Fear is the coin with which I purchase obedience.
The lash teaches more swiftly than the tongue.
A hungry man is my servant; a starving man is my soldier.
Let them envy one another, and they will never envy me.
I bind their desires to my throne, and they call it justice.
What they worship, I corrupt; what they fear, I command.
Promise them safety, and they will build their own prisons.
Every crown is forged from the terror of the crowd.
To divide them is to feed them; to unite them is to consume them.
My kingdom is eternal so long as their instincts remain my altar.
I do not conquer with armies, but with appetites.
The lie that flatters binds more tightly than the truth that frees.
Give them an enemy, and they will beg for my chains.
Hope is my sharpest blade; despair, my shield.
I write my laws in hunger, and they are never broken.
Let them believe they choose, and they will choose me always.
Blood spilled in fear is sweeter than wine.
I sow chaos, then sell order; I am both poison and cure.
The crowd worships the voice that shouts loudest; therefore I roar.
Their basest instinct is my throne, and their trembling hearts my crown.
The Last Vision of Moloch
And I beheld a great multitude gathered in the square,
their faces lit by the fire of screens,
their mouths chanting as one,
not knowing whose words they spoke.
And upon a high platform stood Moloch,
the Cruel King,
robed in flags, crowned with iron,
his hand lifted in a gesture of command.
And the people roared as though thunder itself had spoken,
for their fear was his trumpet,
and their rage his drum.
He marked the stranger for exile,
the neighbor for suspicion,
the child for sacrifice.
He turned hunger into a weapon,
hatred into a gospel,
and obedience into salvation.
And I saw the banners black with smoke,
the torches raised,
the streets filled with marching feet,
and the air itself trembling with slogans.
The weak were trampled,
the dissenters silenced,
the fearful gave their chains willingly.
And Moloch laughed,
for the crowd itself was his body,
and terror his breath.
He devoured truth,
rewrote the past with fire,
and called his lies eternity.
But the ground beneath him quaked,
for no kingdom built on fear endures.
The furnace of his crown cracked,
the scepter of his chains broke as dust.
The multitude awoke
and found they had been devouring one another.
His kingdom collapsed not with liberation,
but with ruin:
a Babel of rage,
a wasteland of ash.
And in the silence after,
no throne remained,
no flag, no crown—
only the echo of his laughter,
a scar upon the earth,
a warning to the ages.
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