Earned his limp from battle wounds taken to scar
He created a symbol for the cities he'd taken in battle
All humans within his control were less than chattel
For any one who might think of trying to rebel
He left a reminder to those wanting to reenter Hell
With precision, and order
He had the skulls of the dead arranged in pyramid
This was a clue for future reference
If freedom in the course of rebellion were revisited
Timur the Lame remembered
All the cities, land and people he'd conquered
His will and understanding of men
Led him to create a symbol more powerful than words
"As specimens of those acts mention may be made of his massacre of the people of Sistan 1383–4, when he caused some two thousand prisoners to be built up into a wall; his cold-blooded slaughter of a hundred thousand captive Indians near Dihli [Delhi] (December, 1398); his burying alive of four thousand Armenians in 1400–1, and the twenty towers of skulls erected by him at Aleppo and Damascus in the same year; and his massacre of 70,000 of the inhabitants of Isfahan (November, 1387)."
E.G. Browne. A Literary History of Persia
