Король, колесница и её водилица

The Chariot of Folly

Along the burdened road of mortal strife,
Where daily cares and clamors choke the path,
A curious chariot, backwards it doth speed,
In mad defiance of all prudent sense.

To it the drunken watchman, light supreme,
Doth flash his green eye, gleaming with deceit.
Within its cabin throne, enthroned in ease,
A bloated lord reclines, and at his feet,
His driver, loyal, dull in servile mien.

They charge through ranks, they crush, they cut their course,
And with the selfsame finger that commands,
They dig the nose and beckon mockingly.
The wolves, now toothless, keep the checkpoint gates,
While others, less submissive, feel the weight—
Crushed like the brittle shell of unborn fowl.

Behind them flies, in sycophantic swarm,
Their cackling train — the jesters and the brutes,
Bound for their daily havens, those resorts
Where pay doth flow without the sweat of brow.

The burning eye of Heaven melts the road,
Yet from the window leers a leprous face,
And cries with sneer: “This world is cult and cold!”

Beneath the hiss of false-conditioned winds,
With glass in hand of smoky J and B,
They mock the Earth, their mother, scourged and bruised—
And if thou canst, O Mother, grant them grace.

Yet hear this law writ high on mountain peaks:
Spit not on men when thou dost mount to heights,
For falling comes, and in thy downward arc
Thou mayst again behold their upturned eyes.

Then cries the driver, sudden in alarm:
“O Gods! O saints!” — and clasps his hanging cross.
“The road is blocked! The signs command a detour!”
The chariot halts — compelled, not out of will.

For bitter is the hand of wayward Fate,
That strikes when plans are ripe with haughty pride.
The wheel misguideth not, though veers the course—
For karma is a serpent cloaked in stars.

Beside the path now stand, with iron fists,
The sons of soil — the workmen, rough and true.
No more they bow; they clench, they curse, they rise,
Their patience broken like a shattered yoke.

The trap the people built with common thread,
Hath finally snapped upon the beast’s own neck.
No pillow, soft with air of safety dreams,
Could shield the tyrant from the vengeful storm.

For lo! The shy have cast off shame and fear,
And learned the might of rights long overdue.
Now at the wheel, a new breed takes the helm —
Their eyes are clear, their backs unbent with scorn.

Yet change, though sweet, doth whisper still a truth:
Though rise thou may, and fortune fill thy hand,
The place thou hold’st is not thy throne by right—
Know thy true station, lest it slip again.

9.6.25