Poem for an Unknown King
From high above the door
at the chapel’s far corner,
his face leers
at the passersby.
His scowl is malevolent.
His eyes are hollow.
His nose is flattened from
centuries of wind and rain.
He smirks at the world
that shuffles underneath
the ancient doors.
He is The Unknown King,
the one who sought immortality
by patronage and conquest.
Like Ozymandias,
his visage looms across
an urban desert,
his power broken
under the crumbling
of the ages.
Yet, even Ozymandias left
his name as well as his face.
The Unknown King
peers down from the turrets
the black shadows of his eyes empty,
his face contorted,
as if in vengeful rage,
in protest against anonymity
and the futility of fame.
From high above the door
at the chapel’s far corner,
his face leers
at the passersby.
His scowl is malevolent.
His eyes are hollow.
His nose is flattened from
centuries of wind and rain.
He smirks at the world
that shuffles underneath
the ancient doors.
He is The Unknown King,
the one who sought immortality
by patronage and conquest.
Like Ozymandias,
his visage looms across
an urban desert,
his power broken
under the crumbling
of the ages.
Yet, even Ozymandias left
his name as well as his face.
The Unknown King
peers down from the turrets
the black shadows of his eyes empty,
his face contorted,
as if in vengeful rage,
in protest against anonymity
and the futility of fame.
There is a certain security in anonymity, in staying "under the radar". Sometimes, we just don't want life to happen around us. We don't want the sneers, the looks, the people talking out of both sides of their mouth (or their hat). Sometimes, we just want to be; to be free of all the falseness of the contemporary life where people are like rats -- running over each others' backs to get to the top of the tunnel hoping to find a morsel or escape the yearly flood. Sometimes, we just need to be quiet, to not have to deal with people who want to use us for our information or our creativity or our talents. Sometimes, we just need to be free of all those greedy expectations and find silence and renewal in the beauty of no thing in the everything that is no thing.
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