An Earth divided by two pantheons, two empires embody them, two orders.
Millions of pawns are turned to soldiers in their name.
The lathe of Heaven turns, as cities burn and pieces fall and rise in their Great Game.
Another war goes on in the periphery, a new regime bursts at the seams.
The hellish rounds of the artillery lay waste to all in sight amidst the screams.
Subject to whims of greater powers, slaves become masters or die among the flowers.
Face up in the battered grass, the dead are tracked by camera light. And end to dreams.
Cold Heavens and their steel angels watch from high above the festering scar,
A new millennium is set to dawn but in their blindness,
The satellites don’t know their Sovereign will soon be gone.
The curtain’s set to fall, and bring an end to the USSR and its lie of fraternal love.
Eternal motion and the will of masses, the gravity of protests can’t be broken by police.
Free markets, the return of classes, an end to privileges held by the red priests.
While rulers cower, for however bold they were before, demands for freedom spoken openly won’t cease.
An empire crumbles as its faith grows old and power is ceded from the Party’s hold.
….
Where there were two, one stands now undivided.
One Superpower that now decides the fate
Of nations. Free will, liberation.
Millennia of war have come to peace.
Amerika, the song plays on the radio.
A piece of wisdom from far flung Tibet.
A pop, and sizzling sounds of Coca Cola
A toast is given to renewal at Tet.
History ends, in such a simple beauty
Sunset aligned against the cooling glass,
The wars are ending and the happy tourist,
Walks barefoot on the foreign grass.
What is there left, but to enjoy the cool breeze,
Far from the factories churning out the smog,
Seize fate, or be a peaceful cog, in a machine…
Where rights are given even to a dog.
Yet in this peace lies a profound delusion,
For who decides when it will be the end?
What machinations keep the Lathe from turning?
Who will be crushed when It again descends?
…
And so an interlude is ending….
The skies open and holy fire descending.
Sending the children their democracy
“Bow down before us, lesser nation.”
“Or face obliteration by our hand”
Steel angels watch as the strategic bombers
Turn sand to glass and return glass to sand.
What sovereign dare not fear such demand?
What state can close its eyes at desecration?
In desperation nations now re-arm,
And factory smoke darkens in the preparation.
The dragon coils, its talons newly sharp,
For decades it had waited by the bedside,
Patience it kept, as its old rival died.
And on the bleeding corpse, it grew in power and strength and essence.
…
The clock is ticking, halving time. Decay of meaning and of rhyme, and all are seeing the decline, the new world order – old disorder yet again the world is balanced on a dime, that’s rolling forward.
Always onward.
If it had balanced on its side, arrested between genocide and fratricide, if it had fallen flat forever and justified victories fervour and fever of eternal war forsaken for a future that belonged to all – if if and if, there is no end, the hand that holds the whip can only bend, to strike and flay the skin and the flesh rend.
Soon it will be the end.
Leave a Reply