Poem: 'Slave Labored Severance in Sovereign Obelisk Shadow' by Alan Lisanti

Slave Labored Severance in Sovereign Obelisk Shadow

by Alan Lisanti

from below these monuments

wide eyed wonder, astonishment

and they, immortal in aging stone

un-weathered by the curse of time

and their stories transcend centuries

and their legends larger than past lives

their legacies upheld, strengthened by mortal minds

and imaginations, in rituals, in worship, in ideologies, in laws

and principals, in sacred temples, in ancient texts

in prosperity and plague and blood and perpetual death

the gaze of admiration tempts him twisted in the soul, he is

primed for elevation won’t the unworthy bow around his presence

lifted from the curse of mediocrity

a throne fit for a king on a cloud

power unbound unquestioned unthwarted

flesh eternal in this world

where every story has an end every being an expiration

he will be revered beyond these forces

carried in the hearts of men to bridge the void in flawed design

to assert meaning beyond the relative in the theatre of divination

to offer them the purpose to serve

to cast aside their cause their power and their virtue

to be doused in the blood of swine
disguised as sheep and stripped of instinct

to be cloaked in the jesters’ robes
to be the hand of creation on the assembly line


serving self-appointed deities


charismatic and celebrated


puppets on a power trip


pulling strings and mouthing clichés to the masses


hanging onto these false promises


when every word was bought and sold


every ideology paid and polished


so when the hooks sink into their jaws


and pull in opposing directions,


you receive the force fed teachings with ease


you swallow the fabric sewn by desires of ambitious lament


so that he may be impostor standing tall on holy mountain


and those below, and you beneath


carving granite with the chisel of dementia


bloodied fingers wrapped around tools of the trade


like scalpel, brain surgery-architects of pestilence


steel glistened when reflected light from sun,


 catches eyes, reawakens realization


this device also a weapon


work is done