The Manticore - Ernst Junger

Ernst Junger was a restless man,
with a still heart, which muscles pumped
around about his body’s span,
squeezing the tube of hemolymph,

so that it was from this ichor,
that cigarettes, Nazis, bombs
bullets did not kill this manticore.
Not the No Man’s Land hecatomb.

Yet David was loved of the Lord,
the monk of war without a cowl,
the man, lion of the Lord, forward
pronged scorpion, on ceaseless prowl.

How does one live in webs upright ?
Not by malice in sting uptight.

Woodford Halse - 30 October 2025

Ernst Junger ( 1895 - 1996 ). Sorry about the missing umlaut.

Insects do not have hearts as we do. Why they have hemolymph and its circulation does not convey oxygen.

The right enemy is necessary to delimit us and resist us. Such a person is a Godsend, if we only knew it.

I shall revise the earlier poem from the beginning of August.