The Lights at Nero's Party - After the Sirens
How vaguely we eschew complicity with You,
It's always run-arounds, excuses
And words we bind to nooses
Just to sullenly let swing
The best of arbitrary things,
Like, do we care about the poor?
Oh yes, but we support the king.
And we're starving for the slaughter.
A man gives up his daughter
And the walls that keep us safe aren't saving anyone.
Didn't You sayto risk everything?
And we're left dieting for more
And then we're burning on the tor
That flanks an emperor's affair.
We've hardly sacrificed before
So in manic heavenward stare
Let the confession from our lungs
That as our bodies torch the air
To the fanfare and the drums,
Amid drunken wild acclaim,
We have the urge to scream Your name
Without hesitance or shame
Affirm our place among the burning.
And our bodies break, confirming
Our inability to remain
Without an object for our yearning.
Our inability, our inability.
"Oh God, accept our spirits into Your holy presence"
"Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired." - Tacitus, The Annals XV, 44