End of beginning

¹ Once upon a memory, a kingdom clad in decadence stands,
mirthful Euphrates tenanted, rejoice in the highlands.
² Babylon, tethered to an oasis—cascading in elegance.
Its beauty was quick to captivate.
But darkness, drawn to greed, took fancy.
³ Makeshift warriors struck—and so did the empire,
brought low by fate,
leaving the garden dust-choked.
⁴ But dust does not settle—it swirls.
A Roman edifice it seeks,
whispered—with precaution—
“You, too, shall fall.”
⁵ Rome, whose Colosseum bore honor,
military conquest, and its legions,
was found crestfallen with each crack—
the edges dulling the might of all the powerful.
⁶ Still, hunger for more never ceased.
It was never enough, was it?
She who held a torch, they who raised a wall,
the twins who stretched toward the sky—
⁷ Ruin called them each by name.
Death does not bat an eye.
In its wake, it dreams;
destruction moves in quietly
and makes itself at home.
⁸ Pray tell, their fate was sealed.
Now, bastions wither at their base,
the last of mighty wonders left to fade.

Revolution and Revelation

¹ There, the white bells clang, and clash in the wind.
² ’Tis the day dust and ashes cover the world,
And the voice of a prophet echoes, crying,
“Woe unto the empires, for their dominion sees no light of day!
Woe unto the crowns of men, whose freedom is gone!”
³ He, the lonely oracle, wept at the graves of empires—
For he had seen their rise and their fall—
⁴ From the construction of Babel that waved to heaven,
From the birth of the Roman Colosseum, whose fighters were honorable,
Now stilled by the ravages of time, scattered in fractures—
Memories now only the dead recall.
⁵ O, Heavens! Babylon is no more,
Stalwart, yet conquered by what it once held.
⁶ Alas, grief and despair became their inheritance,
Now they lie in ruin, their tongues stilled in the grave.
⁷ Truly, thy prophet cannot help but lament—
Lament over what was bound to occur,
Lament over the shackles forged by years of imperialism.
⁸ “And the final act I dare witness yet again,
Beautiful structures, tantalized—
Beauty that brags, loud and proud.
Yet that terror did not suffice, did it?”
⁹ By his mere pondering,
The hands of time show no mercy,
With nothingness walking at their side.
Only they bear witness—to the destruction,
The oblique awakening of another age.
¹⁰ How much more torment
must a crumbling culture endure?
¹¹ How many hopes lie entombed,
still whispering of a peaceful tomorrow?
¹² How many lands must be taken
before the conqueror dares call the world his own?
¹³ And so, he weeps and buries every tear,
The prophet’s cry fades into silence,
Silenced by the weight of truth—
For all the crowns, walls, towers, and buildings,
Lost, nothing can revive.
¹⁴ His truth remains his,
That which power and greatness once held,
Falls into forgottenness.