My good friend, Greg Liakos, is a poet, scholar and writer. He has graciously allowed me to share his latest work with our BMG community.
The Black Magic King by Greg Liakos
He who was shameless was first to shout “Shame”! He who was blameless was the first to lay blame. He asked for the people to hand him the throne. Said, “Only I can rule you. Yes, I alone.
A mad, desperate army then won him the crown. He had fired them up and could now keep them down. He said, “Come together,” then split them in two. “If you can’t see my glory then the fault lay with you.”
For the poor and the weak he had nothing to give, Turned away the homeless who sought shelter to live. The people they cheered him, while he robbed them of land, Which he gave to the rich, the great and the grand.
Then a plague swept the kingdom, bringing death and destruction. The King waved it away with a fog of obstruction. Yet the bodies piled higher, the time had turned tragic. So the King reached deeper in his bag of black magic.
With tongue of a lizard, horn and blood of a deer, He concocted a potion of pure potent fear. “T’was the foreigner, friends, who brought us this pestilence. You now live only through my munificent excellence.”
“The strangers, yes, they are to blame!” The people they shouted, their anger aflame. They took to the square, one murderous gang, Dragging all strangers to the gallows to hang.
Their bloodlust now sated, they discarded all fear, Watching and waiting for the plague to disappear. Yet more become sick, more weakened and died. Some doubted and wondered, “Could our Great King have lied?”
From high in his castle, the Black Magic King smiled, As he planned his next trick to keep the people beguiled.
A poem by Greg Liakos
terrymcginty says
Thanks to Greg Liacos for that ode to Idi Amin, Mussolini, all of them, even if it was inspired by our own present raving Black Magic King, and thanks to Fred for posting it.
The role of culture and observation is not to be dismissed.
When we look back at history, it is only glancingly that we obsess over the policy details.
It is most definitely a failure of the left when it looks down its nose at, or dismisses, or ignores the chroniclers of the present day, who refuse to allow us to avoid historical context.
Context, context, context,
Context is everything.
Only with context can our Black Magic King be understood.
I think this largely explains why, when we try to ‘break through’ to one of his supporters, we get a blank stare.
They swim within their own mind in a lake with as much historical context, as a chlorine pool has biological context. A great void.
This, as much as anything else, explains how it is possible we are where we are.
fredrichlariccia says
However thoroughly you wash your hands, if you voted for this government — they will never be clean.
fredrichlariccia says
“Disinfectant in the body — you know what they call that? They call that embalming — that’s the medical term.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi