The Fall of Heroes

Image borrowed from bing

The Fall of Heroes

“Name one hero who died happy!”--Madeline Miller.

Beller Ophon was a superb operative,

                      a lone wolf, a rogue mercenary,

                      a man with a triple brace of particular skills. 

He found it difficult to deal with authority figures

     so he always worked alone.

He made so much money

                              plying his trade around the globe, 

                                              that in the turn of the century

he could afford to purchase a Pegasus,

                              one of only three prototype

                              flying battle cars,                   outfitted with 

electric canons, bomb drops, & laser-guided missiles. 

               

                          He grew famous in espionage circles, after

vanquishing the Solyami Cartel

in Costa Rica, & defeating the dangerous

lesbian murder squads,                           the Amazons,

                                      in Mexico City.

These superhuman feats made him into the Go-To-Merc,

& brought him to the attention

of Zeus Petro, & its powerful CEO, 

Lon Bates---who was having a lot of trouble

                            with a new group of militant Islamic terrorists

                    who called themselves the Chimera;

           their black battle flags emblazoned with the mythical

creature; lion’s head, body of a goat, and tail of a serpent. 

The group of bullies & murderers,       hiding behind the mantle

                                of misconstrued Islamic prophesy,

were highjacking oil fields in western Syria,

                                 owned by Zeus Petro, which

provided the terrorists with the instant wealth

it needed to produce all kinds

                                            of videos & short propaganda films,

                that recruited malcontents from every ghetto

                                            on the globe, & these misguided

Jehadists would soon mushroom their ranks. 

Beller Ophon went into action immediately. 

               landing Pegasus on Middle Eastern highways,

               folding up its weapons

and simply driving right up to forty of their strongholds

               before making its instant battle transformation.

In one ferocious month he bravely tore the heart

out of Chimera, & its few

                          survivors fled, melting

                          back into the mountains.

When Beller arrived back at the headquarters

of Zeus Petro ready for his huge reward,

                         Lon Bates was not there to meet him;

for the CEO had decided to eliminate Beller

            rather than paying him--

            this was a very costly mistake.

                                          

                                     Beller slaughtered the 10 assassins

            who were there to meet him, 

and in the next two weeks killed a hundred more of them.

            Of course, Lon Bates changed his mind,

offering Ophon a king’s treasure,

& the hand of his youngest foxiest daughter, plus

the gift of Philonoe Vineyards in northern California.

For a few years,

          Beller actually settled down,

                             bought into his new role with verve

                                                & great passion, having several

                                                                           children, as  he

                                                 grew very wealthy & lazy.

                             but hubris is a demonic parasite

              for ex-heroes, & as his fame grew 

with the public at large, &

his interviews on CNN

pulled in big numbers of viewers,

              something in him snapped,

              & one bright morning he arose

                                  with that old fire in his loins;

he strapped on his old battle gear,

                    took the silver tarp off Pegasus.

                    & simply announced that he was going

                                    to fly to the White House

                                    & demand the recognition

                     that he felt had been denied him.

You are all aware of his plight,

the Secret Service brought Pegasus down

with twin weasel missiles,

               & even though Beller survived the crash,

               he was imprisoned & terribly tortured by

               the jack-booted SS, before

                                         he was stripped of all his wealth

                                         & his identity, & he was transported

in the dead of night to Detroit,

               where he was forced to live

as a homeless, penniless, crippled beggar

               on those mean & merciless streets.

He never tried to contact his family

or to visit them, for his shame was insurmountable.

                                           They say he died of exposure

one winter’s eve, wrapped in cardboard blankets,

next to an overflowing dumpster

               behind a Chuck E. Cheese pizza emporium.

One of his sons became the governor of California,

while another one died of AIDS;

one of his daughters became an actress,

but her chronic depression led her to suicide. 

His wife never remarried, 

but she did manage to launch

a designer line of clothes

at Wal Mart. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Poetics

This poem is based on the Greek myth of Bellerophon & Pegasus. 

Would  you like to hear the author read this poem to you?