sw00384jt-b1.e19

Justan Tamarind: Book I       e19                            



Against his personage or goodly rule.
I thought my throne a golden-threaded spool
Which so dispersed through Moiland's men of law
Its splendid lengths that not even/ this young Hugh,
Though a fiery genius, would ever claw
The raiments spun from them, would ever peck
The spool itself as if it were a raw,
unwanted cob or corn whose tasseled neck
And head could never really give a speck

Of/ their gold threads to weave to/ anything.
How soon I learned what/ supersedes/ a king.
Saint Ruam was not chosen/ for his grace,
As some wish to believe (and if bards/ sing
It so, they sing a myth), nor for his face,
Which never could suggest a handsome mien;
But rather: to hold the masses in their place.
And I could say such prompted this bright scene,
And turn you all for me and for my queen;

But Hugh DeVry and I have argued long,
And I am tired, yet glad; since what it wrong,
Still, still, is not so much my person as
My throne.  Moilanders!: you think a gong
Has tortured out my senses, or a threat has
Made my courage disappear?  Think not.
Know only that the power of kings must pass,
And better by decrees than by uprooting plot.
So consciences mature/ and egos/ rot;

And humanity thrives: till what was thrust
Upon it by design/ orders/ the dust
It is--from which it came--and each arrives,
In time, to that position where/ each must/
For each/ guide on evolving nature's drives;
Where each must be responsible: not through
Loss of self in learning and labor hives
Or dearth of humor, but in living true
And selfless presents wherever they're due--

Through loss of self in one where self will grow,
Not wither, die.  What we by reason know,
Or in a million years may know, is naught.
The human race stands bound: from head to toe.
Let manics rattle what they feel they ought!
Depressives think their selves destroyed by groups!
We are more than the sum of what we're taught;
More than the lines of those paranoid troops
Which fight for sly commanders, sullen dupes.





Brian A. J. Salchert