114. The Future

Man has a choice.
Between dark.
Between light.
Who will write the pages of the next thousand years?
Will it be peace and harmony with nature and ourselves
Living in a glorious utopian paradise?
Or will there only be more bloodshed and violence
As we fall into the chasm
Of our own making?
When will our star fall from its lofty height?
What new stars will replace us?
Will they pave their roads with us
As we with those before?
There will be new Ozymandias statues
Erected and worn like the old.
Who will come to sing our song?
I don’t know.
The muse hasn’t told me.
I only report what comes to my fingers.
My muse tells me only what has been written.
But she says this,
It’s only the prologue to an even greater story.

91. Prologue IV

O sweet muse!

You have shown me so much.

For that I am grateful.

I’ve seen the living fossils

Evolving from the mud.

I’ve seen the passing of empires

Built on dust and blood.

Fearful men came and went.

Ozymandias statues crumbled to the ground

As new ones were erected over them.

I’ve seen the fires of revolution

The bloody rivers of war and conquest.

Now you point on.

I shake with the thought of future terrors I have yet to see.

You, like the angel of death before my grave,

Silently point to that cobweb encrusted door

Begging me to see that dreaded inscription.

Please muse, I say, must I push on?

Still silently, the bony finger

Clasping blackened scythe

Urges me to push on

As witness.

71. Prologue III

With the death of Rome and her son
The world passed onto a new age.
Greece gave us democracy.
Rome gave us republic.
Philosophy and science
Made the world real.
Thousand year empires disappear
Into the ancient dust and ruins of the past.
Religious service
Turned cathedrals gothic
As they threw out old gods
In place of saints and symbols.
Dynasties pass
As Ozymandias statues of Zeus and Athena wear and erode.
Slowly eaten away by acidic rain.
Leaders rise up then they fall
Only to bring in new ones.
“King of kings am I,” the dragon said.
Then came a Greek
Saying “He is dead.”
“King of kings am I,” The Greek one said.
That all changed
With Rome’s crown on her head.
“Queen of Queens, am I,” Rome herself once said.
Now, with Caesar,
She rests her head.
No one worships these forgotten gods.
They play on in fantasy
As ghosts of bygone times.
I wish to stay to play with them
But the muse begs me to push on.
Future pages await.
There are new Ozymandiases to behold
Otherwise they’ll remain unwritten.