He wears a crown to hide his balding
head
above his sneer, snarling vapors of red.
His voice cracks, failing his people
led,
limp now on the throne of his dying bed.
His frail fingers fail, loosing grasp of
breath
public
prisoner on parole: nearly free in death.
A line of travelers, revelers far from
home
gifts upon gifts beside his body strewn.
His platter is served, his feast to be
had
brought all by some faceless lad:
a victim, once, of this tyrant’s fad—
Poison for the mind of the mad
king who wants not but asks nonetheless
for a price to be paid from all the rest—
they are nothing but vermin, bees and
pests.
‘lives’ for naught, ‘till surrendered,
for the best.
There is no rest for the free who pass;
the king is full though it will not
last.
The dying and despair are easy and fast,
moldering scars on the crowned face cast
down. Perpetually idle in the throne's prison
casting daggers that crack at the schism
dividing the line between the sane and
the noble
until all that’s left are the king and
his rubble.
A monument there stands bare and alone:
a testament wrought from marble stone
for those weary travelers far from home.
The king stands naked and petrified
—crown fallen to the sand at his side,
free from the throne and the people led,
defenseless
now against the stupor he bred—
exposed with his sneering and bald head.
Great poem! You successfully incorporated several archetypes associated with kings and tyrants: the feast, the gifts, and the subjects who exist as nothing more than "faceless" pawns to the king. I also like the imagery at the end of the poem of the monument. This really makes me think of how people can move out from the shadow of oppression the monument casts. In other words, it is not enough to overthrow a tyrant; they must be overcome. What happens after the crown has fallen?
ReplyDeleteWhat an incredible poem; it feels timeless. The themes are powerful, palpable and resonate. The rhyme is beautifully organic too—nothing is forced; rather, words are not chosen merely for true rhymes but because they need to be chosen to extend meaning.
ReplyDeleteThe thematic unraveling, the well controlled meter, and Aya's question of "what happens after the crown has fallen" reminded me of “The Mask of Anarchy,” a political poem written in 1819 by Percy Bysshe Shelley following the Peterloo Massacre. In his call for freedom, it is perhaps the first modern statement of the principle of nonviolent resistance. Shelley begins his poem with the powerful images of the unjust forms of authority of his time "God, and King, and Law" – and he then imagines the stirrings of a radically new form of social action: "Let a great assembly be, of the fearless, of the free". The crowd at this gathering is met by armed soldiers, but the protestors do not raise an arm against their assailants:
"...Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;
What is Freedom? Ye can tell
That which Slavery is too well,
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own
Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words, that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free!
The old laws of England—they
Whose reverend heads with age are grey,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo—Liberty!
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many — they are few"