A tally can be made to be whatever is selected,
Machines that count the ballot box are easily aligned,
To show the winning candidate has justly been elected,
Machines not men unconscious are,
and guilty of no crime.
Leaders beget leaders irrespective of the law,
And they become the public face through this complicity,
They stand up straight and mouth their lines whilst hoping for the draw,
Which records their names forever on the page of history.
In any case what is the point in fussing over details,
Republic or democracy it matters not the name,
The people’s power relinquished is at my inauguration,
I instigate agendas in another party’s name,
Which I care not to offer up for base skullduggery.
And so I realised the King was more than just a fool,
But through his words and actions grave was a kind of living tool,
To instigate the agendas of some greedy oligarchs,
And all of us who once assumed we played important parts,
Were simply public servants in this strange plutocracy.
Assuming as I did the King had baldly spoke the truth . . . .
But even if it be the case that he expounded lies,
He seeks to disempower us because he undermines,
The rights of individual votes in this democracy.
Or furthermore he might just wish to simply shift the blame,
To imaginary leaders who as yet remain unnamed,
And this might too a plot or plan be foisted on the people,
To justify his evil plans or stumbling ignorance.
And if it be the sadder case that other men expound,
A strange bizarre new order based on false conspiracies,
They too must not for in this way they too shall shift the blame,
And justify the errors perpetrated in his name.
A king who claims he knows the truth and professes to be wise,
is more than simply foolish,
for he offers with his lies,
The means to plant and sow the seeds which harbour men’s destruction,
And justify more suffering and unending misery.
(The Foolish King):
All those who speak may be a threat, and may be thus detained,
Detract the Habeas Corpus writ to punish without pain.
(The Voyager):
All those who break just government must be morally contained,
It is no right of government to torture, kill or maim.
Bypass not people's noble thoughts with base inequities!
Lest they in their great outrage start the Battle of the Free.
A tyrant king who claims he needs unlimited jurisdiction,
To influence the course and actions that he puts in place,
A coward is who lacks the strength of democracy's convictions,
This man who has no right to wear a smile upon his face,
Whilst others on the fields of battle bleed to prove his case,
Your oath of office and your lies are more than a disgrace . . .
Thus caught within true logic’s web,
Must you too face the charge of death?
(The Voyager):
Oh wicked smiling despot who in the face of justice hides,
You ought to be arrested and convicted of war crimes!
For you have never fought or served upon the battlefield,
Nor would you risk your life or limbs whilst with your seal and shield,
You mouth your words of courage with a sick hypocrisy,
Encouraging the brave to die in an unending victory.
At this the Spirit touched my robe and with a calming hand,
Prepared my soul to journey on to witness further lands.
She offered my indignant heart a noble benediction,
To quieten my solicitudes and bolster my convictions.
(The Spirit’s Blessing):
Blessed be the peacemakers who do not sorrow bring,
The death of war or poverty to any living thing.
Blessed be the pure in heart who labour to achieve,
Justice and equality, they toil not to receive,
But seek to help all those in need,
to calm and pacify,
the sorrows of the suffering,
bringing hope into the lives,
Of all who bear the pain and loss of war and poverty,
For through their great endeavours they perfect humanity.
Good citizens please find the strength to stand by your convictions,
And know the constitution as original testament,
Imperfect is but apt to change,
permit but one restriction:
No tyrant king must mar or spoil this great experiment.
Remember too though kings be great so many make mistakes,
And many fall from graceful heights because of expectations,
But hope for greater things must be the bedrock of a nation,
And dreams of change can bring about a better legacy.
Good traveller take heart one day united all shall stand,
To face the daunting challenges irrespective of the land,
Or country wherein they reside, so that they all shall be,
Considered global citizens where all are safe and free,
And have their measured portion of the Earth’s prosperity,
Whilst preserving their uniqueness and cultural diversity.
Irrespective of a race or creed or ideology.
Then in my heart the Spirit spoke of a long and arduous journey,
Which we were forced to undergo to witness many things,
Across the Earth we wandered then observing pain and grief,
And all the sorrows of men’s strife that we were bound to meet.
Canto V
The Spirit conducts the Voyager on a tour to witness the nature of suffering on the planet: caused by the inequality of wealth, greed, poverty and famine.
The Spirit explains how men create their own Hell on Earth due to injustice and a lack of attunement to the whole.
Mother Earth’s oases jewelled by azure seas and gold green hues,
Did lie before,
My outstretched arm, the Spirit holding fast,
To lead with strong assurance as the desert’s mighty blasts,
Of chilling storms and numbing cold anethesised all pleasure,
And awe and wonder at the risks my body frail did take.
So brave the daunting flight we took like mariners on the winds,
The masters of our goals and fate selecting destinies,
Until the Spirit led the way through banks of mist and cloud,
Descending with a slowing pace towards some barren ground.
And there beneath a spreading bough I did with shock and awe,
Observe a man of youthful form left hanging from a tree,
His neck was broke, his breath expired, his body cut and stripped,
His arms displayed no force of life,
from working in the ditch,
as he had oft been forced to strive,
and oft was made to do.
In weakness curiosity sometimes compels the righteous man to gaze upon horrific sights,
a moth drawn to the flame,
A morbid fascination for the afflictions of the tortured,
or the company of pain:
So there I stood, a gaping ape, bereft of grace or action,
As the spirit stood beside me and then shed a single tear.
(The Spiri
t):
Here hangs a man, no animal, who forced to slavery,
Endured the loss of human rights denied his dignity,
and every basic civil right affording liberty.
No man nor woman, youth or child, or any living thing,
Should be enforced to serve as tools as servants to a king,
We wield our hearts against the strong, the mocked in sorrow sing,
Our Joshua the family led as Christ hung from the beam.
But prejudice knows no right nor wrong to the blind who cannot see,
That the colour of a human being should not denote the creed,
That spews forth the loathsome doctrine of a white supremacy.
The Spirit then recalled that once another man had hung,
amidst the branching scaffolding as grieving Mary sung,
The Psalm of Psalms, whilst Roman spears did seek to pierce his lung.
As I there stood the thought did strike,
the bitter irony,
that swift conflates a parallel with compounded miseries,
that the Christian wars, the godly men who slew the Muslim Kurd,
had sown the seed which thus bequeathed this present legacy.
And as I stood and bent my head in sadness at this shame,
A distant chorus blessed my mind with a spiritual refrain.
(Chorus):
Oh one man’s freedom fighter is an abolitionist,
And one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist,
And one man’s freedom fighter is a segregationist,
From Selma to the mighty walls of old Jerusalem.
For one man’s freedom fighter is a man we do not know,
Who hides his face in hooded garb and sleeps with old Jim Crow,
Whilst other men he hates and kills toil for him in the fields,
From Montgomery to the mighty walls of old Jerusalem.
Its cotton picking time again, the flowers are all in bloom,
The seeds a scatterin’ on the wind, the harvesters in tune,
God’s hand we seek, but cannot know, or pluck it with his fingers,
To use, for we be mortal men, hard toil is all that lingers,
From Selma to the mighty walls of old Jerusalem.
The colour of a good man’s skin should not indict the claim,
That it reflects a baser character or should enforce another’s name,
To be taken or adopted for some economic gain,
From Selma to the mighty walls of old Jerusalem.
No Blackman, Whiteman, Gentile, Jew,
Should justify the right,
That enslaves the hand of free labouring men to serve a master’s plight,
All human beings are made as one to promote equality,
From Montgomery to the mighty walls of old Jerusalem.
A king upon a mountain top proclaimed a noble dream,
So all who laboured and did thirst,
should drink sweet water from the stream,
One day to cross the mighty ford,
the river Babylon,
And weep no more for their father’s toils,
as we wept for lost Zion.
From Selma to the mighty walls of old Jerusalem.
I reflecting on this pitiful sight,
took comfort from the fact,
That all these shades were images presented from the past,
They had no depth or substance in current reality,
But had been necessary trials on the road to set men free.
But as I sought to use the past as timely recompense,
To assuage my heart of sorrow at the prejudice of men,
The Spirit swift dispelled my mind of any thought or cause,
Which might into my actions breed complacent apathy:
Even in these present times there exists by cause of greed,
A despicable promotion which is modern slavery,
Where children, men and women are still traded for a price,
For trafficking, forced marriage, or licentious sexual vice,
How few steps men have taken to slay injustices like these,
Rich men kill great ideals in the pursuit of vanities!
Conducted by my Spirit’s grace, I then was taken downwards,
to witness how the roots of greed corrupt men’s aspirations,
I saw a child exploited by the bonds of enforced labour,
Whose mother’s hand exchanged her life to pay an unjust tax.
Another girl, by father maimed,
He sought through contrived tears,
To sell his daughter’s piteous plight to all who still had ears.
A woman who exploited by her lack of clear advantage,
Was found an occupation in a room upon a sack,
While pimps became her profiteers and junkies broke her back.
From the red fields of Afghanistan to the streets of blue Bangkok,
The traders leave their poppy trails stashed in the poor sweatshops,
The flowers that trade their image as the war’s Forget—me—nots,
Help others to benumb the pain of sad remembrance.
The hashish tents of Bedouin tribes who wind their northward course,
Across the arid desert dunes of the treacherous Sinai.
To ply their fruits as heroes in the hallowed marble halls,
Accept the craving infidel as conducive to their cause,
More martyrs for the needs of men addicted,
And to the law:
they plight their holy troth to God with trust,
their faith adorned,
But not upon the sepulchres of those who bled and fought,
for one more pipe to dull the pain of life . . . .
In death the joy of life was sought.
The Spirit then raised up mine eyes to distant mountain peaks,
Where I did see before me all the histories of mankind,
Stretching out before me were weird panoramic scenes,
Of war and death and poverty throughout the centuries.
And leading from the front was Death in flowing hooded garb,
Astride her steed Apocalypse as plague broke in her wake,
And close behind the Foolish King but stripped of flesh and blood,
Who led his subjects tied by chains with sickening dignity.
Emperors, merchants, tramps and thieves, and every class and station,
Did writhe and groan with ghastly tones imbued by their life acts,
As if their states of consciousness held karmic consequences,
And each and every thought and deed enforced some secret pact,
Which had been drawn without their prior agreement of the fact.
The artists too that I had met made up the company,
Reciting verse of dreadful scenes with anguished irony,
Which added to the pathos of this circus tragedy.
Another vision then arose accompanied in song,
By a multitude of wretched children,
Outraged at the wrongs,
Which men now in the present have bequeathed as legacy,
(A future poisoned chalice cast from their unending greed).
(Chorus):
Mammonas whose body grows,
stretching tendrilled fingered roads,
to strangle, grip and girdle round,
with terrible force the fragile flower,
the sphere of Mother Earth.
Your stinking breath and putrid bile,
Vomit on the fertile soil,
and in the living seas and oceans,
make them acrid cesspits foul,
Whose concrete can
cer spreads around,
upon the lush and fertile ground,
All of the prospects green infesting.
Your heart of sickening poisons retching.
Your hungry great electric soul,
drains energy to feed the whole,
and from the depths of blackened seas,
with a lecherous thirst to fuel cities,
the white hot dynamos which whirr,
contaminate with poison.
Consume not with your dreadful schemes.
Think of your children.
Take pity!
(The Voyager):
Is this the culmination and reward for suffering?
I asked my silent Spirit who stood still as if bereft,
Of any agitated thought or sensitive emotion.
As if the visions passing me had been some ghastly test,
Designed to shock or shake my strength and moral fortitude.
(The Spirit):
These trials you see are nought but shades which take such form and substance,
Because they are projected thoughts of your reality.
They live within your inner mind as phantoms of the future,
Which you believe may come to pass when life comes to an end.
These ghosts which you proclaim as true are formed from your own fear.
The frightful visions faded as the Spirit with her voice,
Did summon up the moral of the perils of free choice:
To eat and breathe is sustenance,
But life requires much more,
Felicity and friendship,
To love and be adored,
but in this scheme the tragedy,
is greed outweighs these sublime needs,
So that the quality of life,
Is ever more diminished.
Money, goods and luxuries
will never quell the sublime needs,
The Dance Macabre Page 5