Pride-Felled
And as Macbeth,
cursed by a charmed life,
so, too, those who
lose by winning,
trammeled by their own parade
through the victory arches,
hung by their own medals,
cut by the blade that knights them,
outed by triumph
with a glorious crown of
daggers
at their backs,
fattened by the spoils of war
so that they drunkenly sleep
at their victory feasts
while cannibal forces creep within
to exact the pound of flesh
rendered by such gluttonous winning.
And so, too, as Icarus kissing the
stratosphere
and plunging headlong into the sea;
as Oedipus, blinded by his own
brilliance
and stumbling into a fate worse than the
Sphinx ’s fangs —
so as these do such victors
lose all
through their breathless exultation.
See there? Upon distant hill?
Sisyphus pushes his boulder up the
Stygian causeway,
thinking himself at the summit
of Mt. Olympus,
but soon tumbles down
with the weight of the trophy
he has won
for fooling the gods.
Just so are we all crowned
with knots upon our heads
in moments of glorious
folly.
Over 70 Million Voices
“We need fresh blood, ”
they say, “for the
millstone of theocracy,
fresh blood whereby our
Old Testament god
may wet his bread
in the ichor of innocence,
dribbling crimson droplets
from his idiot ’s grin,
enough to drown democracy
and baptize America anew
with the biblical ideals
of covenants old.
The earth must be purified
with fire, ” they add,
“and even our charred bones shall
make flour
for our god ’s covetous appetite.