This pair of poetry and art come together as a pair. The poem is titled, I Sat And Watched The Pronouncement Of The King For The Last Time and the artwork it inspired is titled Ruin. More recently, I’ve been putting the poems up on Tiktok but unfortunately this one is a bit too long for that format.
I Sat And Watched The Pronouncement of the King for the Last Time
I sat and watched the pronouncement of the king for the last time
From a tower up on high
Little rose pedals cascaded below, showering corruption alongside their scent
From the eager promises lolling on the lips of a lunatic dictator
The crowd hung on every word
Oh my!
Could he rally such a cry
From tears and jeers of all those who loved him,
And loved to hate him.
But no one seems to be able to get enough of his blather
They consume his every word,
And let it bring warmth and hate to their hearts
I sat and watched the pronouncement of the king for the last time.
For the queen held no power these days,
A living, moldering corpse, propped up by high fashion
Her distraction lives in the expectations of pomp and circumstance
A role model?
No.
A comedy,
A farce,
A prop.
Her righteousness is twisted through a veil made of her undergarments
We lust after her curves and seek to suppress her for our lecherous gaze
So we can make use of her body and discard it when finished
She’s not expected to perform anymore,
For her silence is more desirable.
I sat and watched the pronouncement of the king for the last time
When art hung in tapestries like dead hanging flesh on a rotting corpse
Its soul depleted for the pleasant, the normal, the expected,
Its lukewarm flavor brought to you by your favorite sponsor
Did you see them?
There, below the dais, the mistrals sat in rows of confused passion
Blowing trumpets, bent by the will of the dictator, to change their sound for his delight
And soon their skins will be stripped by the costs of commonsense
Their only sin, to create,
Instead of creating profit
I sat and watched the pronouncement of the king for the last time
When horses were quartered to feed the starving in the streets
So that the poor could dine on the less desirable entrails
And “use the whole animal.”
Undercooked and underpaid they gobble without napkins and nod in agreement when told,
No one wants to work anymore
All the while, the dictator’s allies swim in rivers of gold and blood
With naked slaves serving their whims
And women and children work in foreign lands to satisfy their superficiality
The lords and ladies dance until their decadence destroy all civility
And the enemy is exaggerated to hide their own extravagance
Squandering potential, they let others bet on a maybe, as they cross borders,
For More Empty Promises
I sat and watched the pronouncement of the king for the last time
As fires consumed forests faster than fracking could till the blood of the earth
And men sat in armor on pale horses, blaring lights and sound in the spaces where hope is barren on the storeroom shelves
Where those who protect water were doused and drenched until the last barriers crumbled
And no decency was left
They will die thirsty,
Drenched in the water they needed,
Sucking water from cloth, they will taste the dyes as their eyes close one last time
I sat and watched the pronouncement of the king for the last time.
When the dictator’s corruption grew to great heights and fed on the flesh of all the loathsome worshipers,
As they cast the names of gods around like so many useless hens clucking
When outrage was worth its weight in gold among the bards of the king’s courts, where they made empty promises to capture a captive audience
And whispers of ‘Gods’ will” gagged those who would speak against his crimes
For what is divinity but tyranny,
When they quack about “the Secret”
When change is promised at every step if you just visualize harder,
But theft was the only true golden rule.
I sat and watched the pronouncement of the king for the last time
For the torches are already burning in the hands of those who see the truth
And the trumpet trumps his lies when blown from below
Where the wisdom of crowds grows in magnitude
And so, I sat and watched the pronouncement of the king for the last time
For his end is at hand
Loridian's Laboratory 