Heir of Prophecies, Part X

Heir of Prophecies, Part X  /  Joshua Alan Sturgill                                           

After the payments have been deferred
the uranium extracted and spilled again
onto the surface of the earth, wealth borrowed
from the future and piled for the envious,
after reformations and counsels and revisions,
revolutions and hypotheses, after all eyes
are made to focus with intensity at the Place
of Sacrifice, the chosen Altar, where abortions
are offered to lawful demons of happiness,
where curiosity masquerades as progress, then
at that predestined Place, around that Altar
a Temple rises from our blood:
                                                  [A Temple,
a spontaneous generation! we proclaim, Proof
of transitional evolutionary forms! Justification
of past political experiments!]
                                                  a Temple
defining beauty, promising equivocal goodness,
portioning truth according to perception,
                                                 [a Temple!
we shout, A Temple for the Sphinx! The King
is dead, murdered, on the road to Thebes.
There is no road. There is no Thebes. Who
will rule us? Who will carve into the flesh
of the Queen? Who will mine her and spill
her children out onto the earth? We will all
go inside her; we will worship our chosen Image.
We will be a Temple! ]
                                                 a Temple
for the Sphinx to trample and devour

All poetry and supplementary material: copyright 2021 by Joshua Alan Sturgill. All rights reserved.