O, Ozymandias, the king of kings,
setting sun mocks your torso, wind erodes
your remains, where sand builds castles and sings
and sculpts the wind. Cities crumble and roads
crosshatch the remains, Nile thunders and wears,
your flesh diffuses in the air, eyes crush
and coalesce in a blind arc that bears
military junkets, where brined blood rush
like raging waters of Niagra falls.
Cleopatras are the billboard beauties,
Caesars build coliseums and fire walls,
leaders barter sand and collect booties
where Sphinx plays Chinese whisper with fireflies,
Pyramids are geometries of lies.
     


For Those Who Have Not Read "Ozymandias"

OZYMANDIAS (P.B. Shelley)
met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.