Subscribe to Toylit

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Lament of a Scythian King [Bonus Poem from the Archives]

Lament of a Scythian King [Bonus Poem from the Archives]

Why must they find my body and booty?
Why excavate, only to desecrate?
Though we sacrificed a beauty
To ensure my burial gate, looters sate
Their wicked curiosity in my tomb.
They: indifferent to my sacred room.

When I lived we cared about the way we'd die--
Though we never fathomed our own extinction.
Where are my Scythian heirs to deny
Those thieves who rob my royal distinction?
Are sacred moments easily forgotten
By the ungrateful fry that we've begotten?

Is sacredness tied to living worship?
If so, then descendants know: my fate is yours.
You should forget the burial and skip
Straight to the lab and formaldehyde stores.
My venal seed ensconced by technology;
Knowing death only by archeology.

Science mines for meaning it cannot make.
They scratch the earth, the sea, the dead: to scope
Each thing, they break it. This is their mistake:
They kill off gods, but still they look for hope.
We ancestors wait in the firmament
For our sons to ascend toward punishment.

--
Circa 2004 or so.

Buy the Q1/Q2 2010 Report right now:
Return to Toylit Subscribe in a reader

No comments: