POWER

“Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory”  

Henry Ward Beecher. 

KING OF THE HILL

Stone hand upthrown,

he faces west:

sharp-browed, stern-eyed,

tall, statuesque.

Read the inscription at his feet:

A worthy man whose noble deeds

set him among the town’s elite ...

and yet, the epitaph misleads.

A robber-baron in his day,

then changed, by circumstance and luck,

to city elder, feet of clay

well hidden, so no thrown-mud stuck,

he ruled his little fiefdom well

and saw his enemies destroyed 

without remorse. Who could foretell

that such a man, one so devoid

of gentleness, with traits like those,

would be immortalised in stone

and, in this hand-hewn granite pose,   

transcend mere flesh and blood and bone 

to stand now, haughty and austere

upon a lofty plinth that reads

An honest man in every sphere ...

A worthy man whose noble deeds ...

Such sentiments are seldom true:

all’s foolishness, a massive bluff.

Man needs to forge idols anew:

mere gods alone are not enough.