by Jocelyn Ajami
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| AI-generated gif by NightCafé for The New Verse News |
“Our Golden Age has just begun.” —Donald Trump
Gold is great
From the rubble they erect gaudy
temples, trimmed with gold and lust
Wine cellars lick the soil, imbued
with the fetid scent of slaughter
Gold is great
From children’s eyes they steal
rainbows to light arches and roulettes
from their marrow, mortar to seal the
sandstone fronts
Their hair thread arabesques
into the dice that roll and roll
Gold is great
The root of sorrow, buried beneath
the shimmering spectacle, seethes…
slowly migrating, breaching sea
and stone
until no false suns remain
to scorch the truth
Jocelyn Ajami is a painter, filmmaker and poet. She turned to writing poetry in 2014 as a way of connecting more intimately with issues of social conscience and cultural awareness. She has been published in various anthologies of prize winning poems and has been nominated for Pushcart and Touchstone awards.
