"Building a regime" - Poem by Peauladd Huy

Building a regime

Poem by Peauladd Huy

Rebels are marching in and citizens

are like vestal virgins

when the temple is raided. The hearth’s neglected and offerings are found crushed

down like white lilies had since browned

fading shadows under the throng of combat boots.

Nothing’s without its bruises on this stomping ground:

the stone structure and the frayed drapery weightless in the wind

undressing the door, like a limp hand waving away

a quivered mouth wearing her corner-pains the morning after.

Before the one glass-eyed tyrant, life means next to nothing,

especially when he’s caressing his pet dog.

Now the moon with its soft light is setting up like a hundred

years of moss strangling the oak tree.