In your decrees seem as warm
and distant as the sun.
Keep moony doubts to yourself.
Corrupt the reliable bureaucrats;
let judges know they are judged.
Accept that good intelligence
surpasses wisdom:
much as you need savvy counselors,
in time you’ll have them jailed.
For maybe a decade,
count on the people’s ability
to confuse the flaunting of wealth
with the sharing of wealth.
Understand that a palace is no place
for living with a disaffected spouse,
that even a lover’s cottage becomes public.
Treat zealots as traitors.
Once they fill the squares.
you can’t control the crowds
(but, to keep the guard loyal,
acquiesce to carnage).
Keep those moony doubts to yourself.
If (when) the coup comes,
be somewhere else,
basking in the sun.
William Aarnes lives and writes in South Carolina.