after W.H. Auden—Epitaph on a Tyrant
Perfection, of some kind, was what he was after
although he denied it with a shrug, but the words
he invented were easy to repeat, the folly of those
around him familiar, so with mission accomplished
by his armies and fleets, he claimed their tears his
own then danced--a soft shoe here, a foot stomp
there, as children fell down and died in the sand.
Mary Hutchins Harris is a poet and essayist. She has been a featured poet for the Piccolo Spoleto Sundown Series and the Stories for Life Festival in Charleston, SC. Her work appears in on-line and print journals. Her poetry chapbook A Tongue Full of Yeses was recently published as a winner of the 2007 SC Poetry Initiative Chapbook Contest.
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