The Puppet King

One of my earliest and favorite poems, from my T.S. Eliot phase. Added to my collection Suburban Daydream.

The Puppet King

(For Peter Lee Berkich-- 1923-1981)

"O Dark Dark Dark. They all go into the dark...."

--T.S. Eliot (East Coker)

THE PAST (THE PRESENT)

I. The Proletariat

He was strong--

arm strong--

the kind of strong you read about in muscle magazines.

And he was mad--

real mad--

mad at a system that denied him life--

new life--

not Biblical life,

but the life of industry;

industrial life--

the life of hammer on anvil,

pick ax on coal--

the steel mills and coal mines of Johnstown,

the life-blood of a community,

now the graveyard of the employee--

employee 006-23-1981;

not just any employee,

but his majesty, the king.

II. The Megalomaniac

The king sits upon his throne

alone.

Amidst the debris of past industry,

he sits awaiting the arrival of his subjects

that never come.

Half mad--

in the sweltering noonday sun.

Is he alone?

We, too, each in our own way,

create a world of fantasy that only we understand

and share with ourselves

to make existence exist-able.

III. The King of Downstairs

The King of Downstairs

exists a solitary existence,

contained in the confinement

of four Ivy-coated walls.

Never speaking unless spoken to,

never hearing, but forever listening--

to the forever straying conversation of his subjects;

omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent;

Divine-like in nature,

he is an awesome presence

seated upon his Hlidskialf.

But the king's power is in title only.

His authority has long been subordinated:

to the father and the son,

the King of Upstairs,

the general,

the princess

and to anyone else that dare warm his majesty's throne

upon his absence.

IV. The Philosopher

The king speaks:

"Thou, fool,

do you not possess knowledge?

Do you not know that when you

press keys on the emotional

flute of my soul,

you will generate bone-chilling sounds?

"Sounds of the Piper

as he call the children home,

with a dirge that falls upon the ears of

the chosen--

those who dare to reveal deep, dark secrets

of skeletons locked away forever in Hamelin's Hill;

the proverbial deep, dark closet that each of the species

must possess in turn,

in time.

"Do you mock me?

Do not.

For what is the key in which your tune is played?

And what skeletons lie beyond your door?"

V. The Ignoramus

His philosophy ended,

the king returns to his inertia;

a puppet on a string

who eagerly awaits yet another violent

tug

by the ruthless lords of production:

The puppet king

hangs from a string,

by which the ruthless lords

violently

tug

at him

to-and-fro, to-and-fro...

He never makes a sound,

--alone--

in his pantomime playground;

a hunger artist at a

concrete

freak

side show.

Just another actor in a higher play,

a mere pawn in a larger chess game;

he who was once the envy of his peers

has now become the

solitary

fool of fools.

VI. The Legacist

And when all this has passed--

the industry, the production;

the lords shall still exist

in their eternal visions of greed.

(The king) shall be forgotten

and turned to dust.

(His) noble deeds shall be incorporated

into the impetus of (his) descendants after (him);

who shall gladly take their rightful place

on the never-vacant throne of commerce.

Behold, (the king),

and (I).

THE FUTURE (THE PRESENT)

I. Outskirts

Entering the city.

The old steel mill, like a Victorian novel:

Anna of the Five Towns, Hard Times;

the sense of industry.

II. Entry

Gathering dusk. Outskirts. Abandoned hulk of the steel mill. A half shell half eaten out

by an acid shadow cancer sex of advancing dark.

No displaced king among the ruins.

The impending birth. Forgotten. For now.

(One last s**t/piss.)

III. Fanfare

A crown

a robe

a scepter

an office chair (In this seat, infallible.

In this seat, invincible.

In this seat, omnipresent.)

Odin on his Hlidskialf.

What's wrong with this picture?

IV. (Parenthetic)

A story. Behold the man, the head of a department at the mill. Faithful and ultra-devout. Mill shuts down. Man feels betrayed, feels the end of his world. Insanity. Makes the mill his home. Wanders its eerie emptiness aimlessly. Comes into the city at night to pilfer food. Eventually, food thrown his way by the generous. Some local rabble intent on harassing the man. See and hear him addressing an unseen audience. Ghosts. His former employees? Most likely. Rabble tag him "His Majesty." Get him a crown and scepter, along with a king's robe. You are now Pantokrator-- The Lord of All.

This is not a figment of your imagination.

This is real.

As real as you and/or me.

V. Oracle I: The End of Monarchy

Tear it down.

Tear it down, I say.

Make way,

make way for

upscale apartment housing,

make way.

The castle is stormed.

The keep is breached.

The bitter end.

Turned to dust.

VI. Oracle II: The Aftermath

Silence.

The mill: a dead corpse awaiting the second death.

Death.

No signs of life.

Resurrection not.

Author's Note

The first part was written in 1995, the second, thirteen years later, in 2008