A New Poem

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Let the Trumpet Sound
 
The age of Nero has begun.
There will be fires.
Small ones have started –
we don’t know how
what they may burn,
or whom.
Dark winds carry fuel
to nourish them:
white smoke, white ash
white heat to cover
all that is not white.
 
Houses burn to cinder
while Nero adjusts the mirror
to have a better glimpse
of himself, to hide
pustules on the body
politic, his body.
Nero calls for music
to cloak the noise of decay
incense to decorate
the stench of destruction.
Calls for women who will
know their place, positions.
Calls for his enemies
to be fed to the beasts.
Calls any who disagree
traitors to the cause
infidel, foreigner, liar.
 
That house
no longer white
surrounded by smoke thicker
darker, darker.
 
There will be a time of purification
of rendering to make
the city great again
with monuments to Nero
with palaces for commoners
as long as they are pure
as long as they agree
stay in line, march in step
and can verify
their loyalty.
 
There will be fear
for those who deserve it,
spreading like fog
heavy on the ground
seeping under doors
through walls, swallowing
the fragile in the city
the small ones, the dark ones
the others.
 
There will be grandeur and pride.
Nero will strut.
The fires will burn.
And somewhere close
barbarians smirk.
They see the cracks.
They smell the folly.
They know how collapse comes.
And it will.
The fires will bring it
and the smoke cannot
cover it.
Nor the lies. Nor the pomp.
Not the claims of greatness.
And not the certainties of power.

​poem copywrite of the author
 
 

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