Spectator Competition: Memorials for monsters

Competition 3346 invited you to write an ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’. There were fewer Putins than expected but both T Rex and Caligula cropped up more than once. It was a strong field and hard to whittle down but £25 goes to each of the following.

Beast, twelve feet tall and forty long,
Fast, clever and immensely strong,
With eight-inch teeth and fearsome jaws,
The ultimate in carnivores,
He ruled the Mesozoic age,
Exulting in his cruel rage.
But something then occurred to bring
The mighty tyrant lizard king
Down to extinction from his throne;
The cause of death is still unknown.
Of theories there is quite a range:
Disease, volcanoes, climate change,
Or p’raps the earth could not avoid
A rather deadly asteroid.
His legacy’s not what he planned:
Mistaken for a glam rock band.

Nicholas Hodgson

Well, ‘Little Boots’ has clearly made his mark
on history when wearing adult shoes:
the senators were slaughtered for a lark,
their grisly deaths, it seems, would light his fuse.
Declaring war on Neptune – like the sea
his thoughts grew ever more tempestuous.
Was sibling fondness ever meant to be
an orgy, blatantly incestuous?

His horse, his joy, not only was well-shod
but dressed in jewels – a marble stall for hay;
elected consul by the ‘Living God’
who’d license it to vote with ‘yea’ or ‘neigh’.
Assassinated, e’er he did the deed,
the rebels drew their weapons, muscles flexed,
a bloody end, the Roman Empire freed
from tyrant’s rule – that is, until the next…

Sylvia Fairley

The tyrants’ ends are rarely good
And commonly will match their means,
Yet such plain facts, though understood,
Aren’t proof against a tyrant’s genes.
But tyranny is never just
The product of a single will:
Behind the leader’s manic thrust
Supporters pile in for the cause or the thrill.
Some are believers who dance to his beat
And feel there’s a vision that he and they share,
Others, impressed by his skills as a cheat,
Hang on for the ride as long as they dare.
For power is the glory that dazzles clear sight
So people seem blind to what’s done in their name
And blithely enjoy their vicarious might
Till the death of the tyrant puts them in the frame.