By Adrija Vecenaite
A time of repent, the Renaissance
In a quaint town, resides a convalescent man.
No job. No family. No crown.
His luck had run out.
Impious–yet he sat on a throne
Waiting for that castle to fall,
To turn to dust beneath him
The man who spread false prophecies,
Genuflects before the altar
Cast to perdition
No longer would he drink from his golden chalice
In a cloud of illness,
The plague brought many to the underground
Who else resides in the streets besides the cold?
A serpent slithers below the peasant’s feet
The glistening of a star in the quiet sky,
The stinging pain in his left eye
For how long must he live in anticipation
Of when it will sting again?
Plagued by a lifetime of sleepless nights
He reached out a hand, only to find
Whatever he wished for
Was long out of his grasp
Just as he thought he would live forever,
He was no more than a speck of dust in the great wind
Which swept him off the face of the earth.
The king had fallen,
And man ceased to exist.
Adrija Vecenaite is a student at LaGuardia majoring in Criminal Justice. Her work explores the collapse of power through historical allegory, reflecting on human impermanence, dissolution of authority and the erosion of meaning across time.
Photo credit: Eberhard Grossgasteiger (CC).
