The Tyrant’s Death

His cold hands lost the grip on power—

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his abuses had caught up with him.
His obsequious sycophants cheered the guards—
they smothered him to death.

Throngs of people lined the streets as he was carried to his eternal rest.
Behind him the praetorians with stone-faced mean—
orders he gave them shining on their chests.
His assistants with knowing smiles—
guilt not discernible on any of their faces.
Crowds cheered wildly as the cortège moved along—
one group taking up the joyful cry from the other.
Throughout the land, people danced in the streets—
they’d lived to see the end of the monstrous regime.
Never again, they told each other.
Never,
ever!

He barely lay in his crypt with doors sealed forever—
when his children and disciples rose like springtime flowers.
They grabbed the reins of power without hesitation—
the very ones they ripped from him in coldblooded murder.

The crowds who cheered the authoritarian’s demise
suppressed thoughts of the new group’s link to his oppression.
They argued to each other:
The old regime was not so bad—
surely this new group will not replicate
the worst abuses of the man they so despised.

“New” was an incorrect description
of the men and women who succeeded this authoritarian.
They usurped him to create their own regime—
in new clothes, theirs was the old

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