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 civilization 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 hauteur! 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 