(after Shelley’s “England in 1819”)
A demagogic moron mad with power;
his brood snapping their tongues at golden flies
with reptile grins of brazed entitlement;
the people’s servants rioting in rooms
reserved for dire and solemn undertakings,
crazed to thwart the law’s unerring hand;
children orphaned at the gates of hope,
lives heedlessly and gleefully destroyed;
trusted, trusting comrades in trust betrayed,
left to the mercy of their foes and ours;
blind Justice crawling on her hands and knees
searching for the scales some shyster stole—
are dung from which a mutant flower might grow,
of shapes and colors hitherto unknown.
