tom taylor

fool’s parade

here they come, cap and bells, lining back into
history into gloom and absence, faces lined with
grins and knowing winks, figures of time and
destiny with their forces laid out for us to see

the idiot masters carry their sacks along behind
filled with the bones and gold of the dead they
have made for their play and fancy and our dread
along the way an empty hour waits for a finale

column after column fills the stage while insane
music blares into the room where the rest of us
wait for a beneficent calm or a pale respite from
what seems inevitable and unending into time