Alexander Ross foretells the collapse of gilded thrones and profane pageantry, as an ancient radiance awakens beneath the ruins of a dying age.
Exhausted, these days of spineless tyrants, rhetorical rats in the vestments of state. Long squandered, their tributes of blind compliance. Disbanded, their civic apostolate. Though priests of regime still breed and abound, dealing amusements to throttle the muse, piercing the din comes the sweetest of sounds, a crack in the plinth that props the great ruse. I wait on the morning when Wisdom will reign, to feel it, as from the sepulcher, arise. When counterfeit rites have returned whence they came. Thrown open, the vaults of the Earth and the skies. There are times for strife and times for forgiving. Occasions inverted, so long I’ve been sold. Pure life—the giving, the taking, the living— no less at the center, ‘gainst gyre, can hold.
Alexander Ross is an American poet. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming with, Antelope Hill, Corncrake Magazine, Apocalypse Confidential, The Society of Classical Poets, Gopnik Press, Michigan City Review of Books, Don’t Submit, HAWKEYE, Horror Sleaze Trash, Trampoline Poetry, and Ape House. He can be found on both Substack and X @YeomanPoet.
