The privileged waifs are here now,

preening behind hired armies,

and the legless once-soldier

who leans crooked against a wall

like a toppled, broken statue --

writ on his empty palm the warning

that even armies cannot eat gold --

but these civil younglings cannot see

so far and for their own children,

the future’s road is already picked clean,

cobbles pried free to build rough walls

and decrepit wastrel shelters,

yet this is a wealthy world still

heaving its blood-streaked treasures

at their silken feet -- they are here now,

the faces of civilisation and oh how

we fallen fools yearn to be among them,

fellow feasters at the bottomless trough.

What is to come of this? I rest crooked,

hard stone at my back, and this lone

coin settling in my hand has a face --

some ancient waif privileged in his time,

who once hid behind armies, yes, until

until those armies awoke one day

with empty bellies -- such pride,

such haughter! Look on the road!

From this civil strait I would run, and run --

if only I had not fought,

defending that mindless devourer

of tomorrow, if only I had legs --

so watch them pass, beneath their parasols

and the starving multitudes are growing

sullen, now eyeing me in their avid hunger --

I would run, yes, if only I had legs.

In the Last Days of the First Empire

Sogruntes

(BH)