Time Puppets

Prelude—The Sage's Song

How quickly time flies, even in Hell.
Its wings of sulfur and ash sweep you away
To a place where you may neither leave nor stay
Till the toll of the iron bell.

We seek for truth, order, and gain,
But ever do we seek in vain,
For gods, laws, wealth, and power,
Vanish with the fleeting hour.

I see no reason to toil on,
And haunt this world from dusk to dawn,
For all that's said and done by me
Will meet its end in entropy.

Part I—The Shattered Kingdom

Cries of hatred fill the night.
White on black and black on white.
Jew or Muslim, who is right?
He who has the greatest might.

Fields and cities burn with flame
Testaments of death and shame.
Bombers wheeling overhead
Join the living to the dead.

Fire by night, steel by day.
Come and join the bloody fray.
Maybe you can bring them down,
And take the scepter and the crown
Only to lose it again.

The father tells the wizened youth,
"My son. Ask for thyself another kingdom,
For that which I leave thee is too small."
But Philip, the kingdom your son struggled to build
Has shattered into myriad fragments.
The shrapnel is flying.
There is no One Kingdom.
Oh, Alexander, where art thou now?

Part II—The One God's Doom

Far back on the road of history
The farmer threw down his sickle,
And the hunter left the fold.
Freedom from Earth, the harsh mistress,
Freedom to think, to create, to destroy.

The question of life is posed.
The temples once open are closed.
The gods become undone.
Until there is but one.

Oh Allah, where wert thou during the Crusades?
"My children, I was with the Christians
Leading them to battle against thee."

Oh Lord, where wert thou during the Nuclear Devastation?
"My children, I was with the Shiites
Helping them acquire the means of thy destruction."

BUT WHY THIS BETRAYAL?
"Do not question me, mortals."
OH LORD, WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER OUR PLEAS?
ANSWER US!
"Bleearg."

As the chains of ignorance are lifted, the One God shall perish
And Father Science shall reign forever with Mother Leisure at his side,
For the farmer hath become a factory worker,
The hunter a soldier, and the priest a scientist.

Part III—The Longest Path

Who holds the reins of destiny now?
Beware, mortal man, for thou chooseth thine own path,
Steereth thine own course on the seas of fate.
And the seas are beset with serpents,
The serpents of Fear, Failure, and Despair
Which seek to drag thee into the depths,
And the hellspawn tempests of Confusion and Illusion thrash towering waves
Seeking to topple thy ship before thou reacheth thy destination.

But where is our destination?
Look down; all of our paths will end there.
The fate of all living creatures is ours;
Though we outlive many of our brethren, the animals.
We shall wither and in the end be like them,
Unknowing, unseeing, brother to the stone.

But surely, sage, we can attain immortality despite death.
We are masters of our own destiny.

Part IV—The Grand Puppeteer

Masters and yet slaves, for one man's master is another's puppet.
Look around. See the kings and princes of your world,
Born and trained puppeteers all who pull the strings of many.
Yet they themselves are strung.
Even they cannot resist it.
It is the grand puppeteer, time.

All things it touches it devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, and flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountains down.[1]

The puppeteer is the unfeeling creator and destroyer.
Behold! Time is Chaos and Chaos is our lord!
Bow down to its might,
For in the end it will claim you all.

[1] J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Part V—Message From a Ghost

And now I am old, myself a well-learned man, and the sage is no more.

I serve the people yet I am master of my fate.
Wealth, power, pleasure, knowledge, all are mine.
I am a philosopher, a statesman, a scientist, a visionary.
I have saved my world, set it free.
I think not of dust to dust, but instead of day to day.
This feels like immortality...

And yet his phantom remains.
I feel it as I lay dying.
He speaks to me in chill whispers...

We seek for truth, order, and gain,
But ever do we seek in vain,
For gods, laws, wealth, and power,
Vanish with the fleeting hour.

What is hope when the end is death?
Futility lives in every breath,
For all that's said and done by me
Will meet its end in entropy.

Masters of our destiny,
Forces which we cannot see,
Things to which most men are blind
Rule the body and the mind.

Men of wisdom, men of steel,
Turn unknowing on a wheel.
Nations burn; nations rise,
Cities meet their great demise.

And many battles shall be fought
By lords of power, lords of naught.
But when their time is come and gone,
The Reaper claims them one by one.

Love, the thing of summers gay,
Will fade beneath the winter's gray,
And stars beneath the darkened sky
Must finally one day flare and die.

I see no reason to toil on,
And haunt this world from dusk to dawn
When all that's said and done by me
Will meet its end in entropy.

How long can my works and endeavors remain?
Will they survive the centuries,
Or like the kingdom of Alexander fall into ruin?
Oh men of high spirit, heed me,
Or Chaos shall rule unbounded,
And all will fall into oblivion.
Tread not the path of hate which divides.
Dream not of the cursed crown and scepter.
Restrain the animal urges which bring upon destruction,
And restrain others who restrain not themselves.
Continue the quest for knowledge,
And wield it with foresight.
Harm not the Earth lest the Earth harm you.
For only these, the principles of Law,
Can slow the wheel of Chaos which
Runs down the mightiest in the end.

George Chadderdon © 1989