The Masque of Democracy

written on the occasion of the presidential inauguration,

with inspiration from and gratitude and/or apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley

by Quincy Saul, January 2017

1.

I heard a voice on the Southern wind

It came o'er desert soils and poisoned waves,

It demanded of me that I begin

A poem to foil the prose that makes us slaves.

I heard a cry on the Northern wind

It rose o'er the roar of war and grief,

It demanded of me that I begin

A poem to soar o'er doubt into belief.

I heard a scream on the Western wind

It came o'er peaks of hunger and pits of thirst,

It demanded of me that I begin

To cast a counter-spell to our terrible curse.

I heard a song on the Eastern wind

It swept o'er melting ice and rising tides

It demanded of me that I begin

A poem of beauty and battle lines.

      By the word is the world disfigured,

      With the word is the world disgraced!

      With the word is the soul transfigured,

      And illusions are sewn into place!

      Yet the word cannot be replaced!

      For the word is the act prefigured,

      And the word is the spirit's embrace,

      And the word is the will encased,

      When rhyme helps the word find its place

      As the heart keeps the blood configured,

      May poetry pump for salvation and grace.

2.

The modern world had reached an age

Of culminated love and rage,

Confounding every pen and page

Which sought to make it dance upon a stage.

And the poets were lost who could not face frost,

Forsaking the cost of the spring.

Of seasons and reasons we ceased to sing,

And doubt and dread took flight on winter's wing.

And yet a vision came to me

Of culminated loves and rages

So destiny appeared to me

To demand his wages.

He brought the world upon parade,

In calamitous cavalcade,

Where every soul must play its part,

Surrendering their mind and heart

To their place in the procession,

Hear my vision, my confession!

3.

I found myself at the parade

Observing from a promenade

Built from the hopes and fears of all the world.

This nation was the center of this world,

For around this world its war machines curled.

The glory of the empire shone

On towers and trumpets bright as bone,

The lights were brighter than the sky,

And the food and the fuel and the fire and the flags did fly!

It was a land of freedom and damnation,

Of puritans and their temptations,

Of slavery and emancipation,

Of law and re-enslavement,

Of debt and entertainment,

Of genocide and patience.

4.

The sun and moon were in eclipse

But this eerie sight all eyes did miss –

Their eyes on the parade were fixed:

Here was a banker, fat and bold,

With mouth like a wallet and a heart of gold,

Proud of the price that he got for his soul.

Here was a child, strange and shy,

With a mouth that was mute and clouds in her eyes,

Poisoned by lead in the water, that's why.

5.

Here came the soldier, headed to war,

Trained in gore and the empire's chores,

Upon his heart a mighty dream:

“Be all you can be.”

Here came the soldier, back from the war,

Homeless and poor,

He killed for his country,

What for?

6.

Here comes the White man, in his mind supreme,

He can't see why the world won't share his dream,

He's filthy and thinks he is clean.

Here comes the Red man, sacred pipe in hand,

He survived all the White man's plans,

He knows he belongs to the land.

Here comes the Yellow man, patient and strong,

He too has survived all the White man's wrong,

He may be master before long.

Here comes the Black man, who survived the worst,

Who reverses the curse,

Here is the last who shall be first.

7.

Here come the lost youth

Who never heard of truth,

Empowered and let loose.

Here come the adults, proud and secure,

The forgot their dreams but they are insured,

Can they be cured?

Here come the elders, cast aside,

In sterilized centers they wait to die,

Their children do not hear them cry.

8.

Here comes the policeman, from his belt hang weapons

To help the people learn power's lessons,

And on his breast are power's words:

“Protect and serve.”

Here comes the spy,

On his lips lies, hiding

Death in his eyes,

Who's surprised?

Here come the workers, through millions of veins,

The heart of capital holds their reins,

What do they have to lose but their chains?

9.

Here come the suburbanites

Like termites, busy all night,

A swarm and a blight.

Here comes the celebrity who lives for fame,

Everyone knows their name.

The sparkling flame is tame –

Who's to blame?

Here comes the adman, charming and slick,

He lives on tricks which keep people sick.

10.

Here comes the prophet to conquer pain,

To make the world believe again,

Diagnosed as criminally insane.

Here comes the prisoner and the guard,

They both hold freedom in high regard –

To look them in the eye is hard.

Here are the radicals, crazy or brave:

Wherever they can they rant and rave,

How many souls can they save?

11.

Then came the students and their teachers,

All the pilgrims and their preachers;

They corralled their mighty herds

With an electric flow of words.

Shameless of their uncalloused hands

They spoke for the balance of life and land

As if redemption and salvation

Hinged upon their calculation,

As if the fate of land or nation

Could be measured, kept or rationed.

The clever and the educated –

Upon whose words much action waited –

Counseled calm and moderation,

Disgracing all their education,

For their degree and their distinction

Presided over mass extinction!

The shadow that their knowledge cast

Was ignorance, vast.

On their lips was every reason

And a catalog of every treason,

Yet in their minds weighed every cause to pause,

And in their thoughts was every fact and no act.

12.

And then at last, rising over the herd,

The leadership that it deserves!

The first, with handsome eyes and golden skin,

Held the hopes of all with him,

Shaking hands, forgiving sins,

Birds of metal circled him.

With the gold of peace around his neck

And at his feet, six nations wrecked,

In one hand glory, and the other gory,

He seemed chosen by history

To make of it a mockery.

By the oppressor blessed, he stood for the oppressed.

A symbol of peace, he dropped bombs without cease.

He stood up for the poor, and gave the rich more,

He stood up for the sick, and made parasites rich,

He led invasions and shattered nations,

Preaching peace and reconciliation.

His name was repeated the world around,

And in his name they heard freedom's sound,

Heard sweet chariots swinging low

In the engines of predator drones.

With the hope he stole

He gave empire soul!

He was so bold.

He blessed the people as he said goodbye,

And tears fell to them from his eyes

And made them blind.

He ruled with love and not with fear

And so they held him dear.

They wept and wondered at his farewell

As if under a spell.

13.

A different leader now arrived

To represent the empire's pride.

He ruled with fear and not with love,

So they raised him above.

With sneering lips and orange skin

He held the eyes of all on him.

He promised greatness, also power

To everyone that he devoured.

He made deals between villains and cowards

And put his name on many towers.

Chosen to lead the empire's fall,

He promised it a giant wall.

Ugly and ruthless, smug and grim,

He held the eyes of all on him.

An expert in the art of the deal,

He knows how to steal!

Thus the empire did elect

A president with no respect,

To let the lecherous billionaire

Show the world how much they cared.

He pledged to unite all sisters and brothers

In the buying and selling of the Earth, their Mother.

Beautiful women surrounded him

While he made war on the feminine.

A true believer that might makes right,

Whose favorite color was White!

He promised to leave no one behind, and to rob them blind.

He promised peace and promised war, whatever they asked for.

He promised rebirth, and to rape Mother Earth,

And the people loved and hated, and he was elated.

And they filled the streets to announce his blame,

And they chanted his name.

14.

Last came Democracy; he lived

In a white house, built by blacks;

He was bloody like his creation,

Like Death in Revelation.

And he wore a business suit

And in one hand a button held

To condemn the world to to hell.

In the other hand was currency

Proclaiming “Life and Liberty,”

And these words were branded on his flesh:

“The pursuit of happiness.”

15.

He stood upon a massive throne

Made of living skin and bone,

It was dragged through the streets by millions of ropes

Braided from living dreams and hopes.

Golden glasses cover his eyes,

The windows to his soul disguised,

While the fancy shoes in which he stands

Protect his feet from stolen lands.

Machinery was in his ears

Deafening himself to thousands of years.

His nostrils too were closed with gold,

Sealed to the stench of the betrayal of his soul.

His shadow cast in every direction,

(He believes it will protect him)

And before him stands a mirror grand,

So he sees only his own reflection.

In his heart a whirlwind slept

It was his very soul repressed.

For in his soul was something he feared:

Ancestors who held his name dear!

Lingering spirits he couldn't erase

That raged to see their name disgraced,

And promised that they would awaken

To reclaim the word he had forsaken!

16.

Then! Like a dream within a dream

The procession was pierced by a brilliant beam –

The sun emerged from its eclipse

And captured the crowd like a cosmic kiss...

And in that moment every eye

Turned from the empire to the sky

And in that moment every dream

Turned from the empire to that beam –

It fell upon a little girl who had her arms raised high,

And in that moment every ear was filled with an eagle's cry.

Majestic and mysterious, wonderful and wild,

An eagle descended on the beam, to alight on the hand of the child.

And then to the tune of prophecy,

The little girl began to sing:

17.

Remember twelve score years ago!

When what we reap today was sown:

When a nation was conceived

In the love of liberty!

When a continent was dedicated

To the conviction that all are equally created!

Remember when this treasure

Required devotion's full measure,

So that freedom's rebirth

Would not perish from the earth!

18.

Behold the Tree of Liberty,

Withered and weak with drought and disease,
Radioactive with industry,
Strangled by supremacy,
Behold strange fruit and Misery!

Rally to the Tree of Liberty,

Refresh it with the blood of tyrannies!

That's its natural manure, the founders assured.

If a government works against our life,

To alter or abolish it is our right!

19.

Remember twelve score years of wrongs, and sing their songs!

Remember twelve score years of hopes, and weave their ropes!

Remember the imagination:

The equality of creation

As the foundation of a nation.

To fight for the fruits of self-evident truths,

And to live like life has inalienable rights!

To make the dreams of the distant past, real at last!”

20.

And in her small but certain voice,

She gave them a choice:

“Call a continental congress,

To rewrite the constitution,

Or let the winds of change bring war

And civil dissolution.

A constituent assembly

To re-found democracy

So it includes us all –

Or it will fall!

A covenant of all the land's peoples

To overcome their nation's evils,

To forge forgiveness and find new worth

In an empire's end and a nation's rebirth!”

When the child finished, she lowered her hands

And the eagle took flight for other lands.

And here my vision ends,

Where the path of the future bends.