A Tale of Capital’s Rise and Slow Descent

Or: from jade throne to banyan shade

By Aemelia

O beautous Bard with no bounds,

Who roams free in the flowers and fields,

Tell us of the beginning of the end,

of a spectre doomed by its very roots.

Sing of its birth that must bring death

to its very caretakers;

let us see through residued flicker of flame

The rage of those it had crushed,

As it, blinded by its own measures

Steps on those to whom

it had brought brief liberation

and to track it down till its dying years

when it, not unlike its tragic children

cries outloud in pain

as it sees the suffering it brought

and seeks refuge in death

Let us begin presently

And see its bittersweet regret

A tearful flower worth learning from

Pt 1 Paideuso(I shall teach)

As I lay in this dark earth

in the grave dug by those

Destined to bring me release

My eyes, though throbbing

See clearer than ever

Ah! Finally, upon my death

The succor of understanding

Had been dropped like fine liquor

Upon my dried lips;

Ah, now I am no longer wrapped

In my former gilded vision

And I see finally the blood

That cakes upon my smooth hands

I try to scrap them off

These crimison scales

Residue of my own doings

Yet they refuse to come off me

A failing skin-change

A former cocoon

That will slowly suffocate me

The mask I had wrought from silver

Plastered with gilded plastic

To seem more human

Now melt in the flames

And I have seen in the pools

Draining out from my ribs

My own face, at once familiar and forgotten

A man-beast who seems not to have aged

Until this very day of death

Yet now, my cold veins

They are filled with a warmth

Like that of my dying womb

A comfort I will never feel

For a third time

O, pale heart

That only now began to beat!

Too late for me now;

The flames gleefully eat at my flesh

Unfreezing every inch just before scorching.

But my eyes are presently filled

With glittering tremor

Tears of happiness, raw

That never before touched my skin

And my flesh crumbles apart

As those in my lieu worthy

Had begotten salvation,

Feeding this immense earth

With the fruits of their mind.

I look down at the shimmering blade,

The powers of production, destined

To be the beginning and end of me;

And I shall now dabble it in my heart

To finish the work you have begun.

O dear righteous audience!

In the name of learning from the past

Allow me a final grain of grace,

And open to me your eyes one last time,

As I write in my own blood,

My dying song upon this ground.

Ah! a perfect canvas

To be given grave History’s blessings;

For bringing about my death

and laying my bones in true rest,

Allowed to truly live before release.

My tale-wrought blood stains

flowers now worthy to be learnt from

blossoming in the sweetness of relevation.

Pt2 Metempsychosis (re-birth of an older soul)

A child, half man-beast, half-machine

who broke ope in an unholy manner

the dying mother of crumbling feudal orders

given birth to by gilded king-fathers

whose glinting eyes

are yet unaware of its great curses

it wielded a weapon of bone

forged from pains

A blade that creates as well as destroys

Yet its spectre had long haunted

the most ancient of civilizations

in buried Ajax and forgotten mercenaries,

carefully warded away through proper rite;

in the beastly sons of Posideon and Wendigos,

who live without agriculture nor care

and are animated by boundless hunger;

and even reflected in words of dismissal

from twisted mouth of prideful emperors

and jade-sealed decrees binding commerce

as they try to debase their challengers.

Its shadow loomed;

a ghostly presence

that the Delphi oracle and mayan seers

jointly warned against, trembling

in their half-poisoned trance

above the convergence of heaven and earth,

chewing upon dark laurel

Their babbled speech sketches down

A child that dooms its parents to death;

And unlike Oedipus the man,

it was not given mercy-

Its reflections were stifled

by the patrons disguised as deities;

Its bearers’ lives made into tales of caution,

as their bodies lay moribund,

put to sleep by careful requiem

sung by its wiser enemies

who in the spirit of respect

deftly crafted meshes and holy exorcism

to keep it among the powerful yet motionless dead

Yet the scrolls of warning were lost

in the lukewarm womb of church

and fire-pits of repressive emperors

as the shining stars of the old centers fell;

and so the child came with a welcome

a thousand prayer-branches and incense held

the scroll of heaven’s mandate given to invite it

by greedy rulers hungering for its power

And so it came

from the dying mother of feudal obedience

the last bits of silent, familiar society;

its birth pains tore up the last drops of warmth

stripping the silken chains of soil to bare-bone

peasants and laborers, stirred by intense suffering

unfurled fiery skies of anger

as the emerging cries of capital

cut away at their bondage

Yet they did not see the lower gentry

silently making way to the thrones;

taking a piece of Capital’s golden crown each,

they with blade and decree cut up the lands

in search of profit to satisfy their master

who had come out covered

in blood, dirt and marrow

yet crowned with unholy glory

holding a scepter of unimaginable powers

the child to bring about a new age

whose blade will bring pain in its wake

by mishap and destiny killing

its caretakers and servants

as the cold wheel of history

runs smoothly upon bloodied corpses;

and who is destined to defeat by its own weapons,

An Archetype of suffering and extraction.

A vampire that sputters out regret,

Vomiting what it had eaten,

Their craze for blood dying away

As they beg for release

At the hands of their subjects,

And gained life only upon true death,

Beneath the banyans and baobab,

Where Mahakala’s hourglass awaits

To bring release to the monster.

Pt 3Eudaimonia(to emphasize human wellbeing)

You won’t believe this, but

I once brought light, too!

Once upon a time

My kindlier lieu traversed

among springing taverns and villages

their pens a spark of inspiration

as they spoke in hushed tones

Passing sketches illuminated by my fire

A future of renewal

Freed from the tight, infertile grip

Of the crumbling order, lords and serf-peasants

Released into a spectrum of colorful futures

Where any could arise into great heights!

Yet soon I was removed from their side

By my potent caretakers

Placed back in my cot

As they gild my eyes with sceptres

Rendering living dream into pale illusion

The kings and emperors took my scepter for themselves

Sometimes even before my full birth;

And in return fed me profit

Albeit in crude metals and decree,

A delicacy of hidden sweat and toil

I could not completely see;

Cowries and treasures dipped in blood

Had been thrown into my belly gleefully.

Yet I stir in my sleep;

My kinder lieu have not given up.

Recoiled into the corners

They hid from the persecution of power

Even when my sceptre is used to crush them;

Keeping my purer flames

They burned at the fantasies

Awaking the dormant populace

Into righteous rage against their pains.

Compelled by fate-drawn duty

they drove my claws into my dying mother

The ancien regime

To grant her release

As flames of revolt lick at her decay

Ah! Even my stale heart

Is stirred by their hot blood

As their bold flame, never stamped out

Set folk free into fields

A shining promise in the repressive night

That bloomed even as my caretakers

Prop my body up upon jade seats and fine chairs.

Ah! When my potent caretakers

Feed me drugged treats to make me tearless

In the form of sweets laced in slave labor

And bind me into succor

With indigo silks born from poison

So I can be eased into silence

As the rulers wielded my tools

The cock Robin and ravens, intellectuals

doomed to cafés and marginal realms

where steepled order have not yet reached

cried what I could not!

Yet sleep came, welcome or not;

It nestles against the will

Allowing velvet fingers to muddle

The fortress of clarity

And stifle ‘unpleasant’ songs.

Even the call of liberty I carry

Alongside my birthing cries

Slowly become dimming ember

A constant lighthouse to keep the sun at bay

Just like the burying of the mockingbird

The new elites, former merchants

Who rely on hard-earned cowries

Lost their former vigor

As they dress themselves

In the old pageant of rank

Using gilded swords and laquer

To cut up the fat of the lands and market

Making my last stirs

Diffuse in the night

Muffled, inaudible to their jolly celebration

O, they may set me asleep

And put my machines to their use

Generating great streams of wealth;

But the flames my stirring set alight

Is still alive, however dim

Kept in the hopeful light

Animating living tales drenched in pains

Held by those who cannot be silenced by anodyne

A weapon I forged unknowingly in sleep

To be wielded against crowns and whips.

Pt 4 Parakmazo(to descend into stagnancy)

The golden age of newborn Capital

Where some lucky may ascend great heights

By merit rather than lineage

Soon dimmed away;

ships of expansion to the nearby lands

Brought peoples forced to work for mere life

But it was not enough;

The great factories of wage-work, too

With steel slaves and choiceless maintainers

Cannot satisfy ever-expanding appetites

The demands of a vampiric creature.

Even the false cornucopia in a new world

promising an endless frontier of new incorporation

Prepared with blood- sacrifices

to keep away Capital’s decay

Soon faltered, its markets and profit

Not enough to smooth the gear

The machine wiring of Capital’s beastly form.

It reached, blind and still hungering, for more

And its servants gave it a globe to feast on.

The entire earth became its great meal;

Its every continent sawed into Capital’s plate,

Promised if it would only dine with accordance;

As if lands were mere pieces of giant bird,

To be fed to a hungry, pampered child,

Some reward for obedience and pale maturity.

Each continent was gorged on

By an insatiable palate;

Each door kicked down by potent armies

And held at gunpoint-or perchance the ravenous

Fangs of tilted markets

To submit their immense riches.

Europa was pressured by sheer need

To catch up with neighbors

And add more stock to old dispute;

The new Americas were subject first to its yoke

Its peoples tragically suffering

Under the white sails their gods promised relief in.

Africa and Asia followed close;

Their riches above and beneath the ground

Was taken away by those seeking labor and wealth

Endless precious items and lives

To be given as offerings for some grand master

Who was said to be wiser;

Yet its officials were most debasing

Gorging upon vast life-blood

And making machines of steel

Alongside cutting words of dishonor

To facilitate the sacrifice

And pierce hearts with lash and pride

 till they numbly submit.

But not all of its mind’s voices sang lullabies;

Some corners, drenched in unspoken understanding,

Are merely forced into the dark .

The kind ones who held up

Laurel leaves of rational thinking

Against the stagnating darkness;

And saw the hidden truths

Wrapped from scaring the young monster.

Unwaveringly they illuminated raw suffering

Spilling tales, defying gentle poison

of an unknowing controller

who sucks dry their blood and gurgles wealth.

Yet capital in its numbed throne

Have weaved chains of silver and thought

A horrid web of power

To persecute those it inspired

As well as those who carried it

And to set to sleep those who dare question

Wrapped in alienated comforts

And cold steel of oppression

It had since long learnt to forget feeling

To remain still as its builders fall without support

And when poor producers from the past

Were swept into its service

It no longer cried.

Its unbeating heart is used

To infusions of blood not its own

A ruse of reason to limit class conflict.

But the laborers are not blinded!

They rise still against its machines

Knowing all too well

The heavy weight of exploitation.

As predicted, they swung

The blade of production back!

But the beast’s devices are cunning;

It ferments distrust and decay

Divisions to dissolve strength.

The best of intent faltered;

Grave flowers choked nascent growth.

And capital sat back on its throne

Lining up its pageant of rank.

But now, the final battle

Much delayed and smothered

Had finally come forth

And even though capital once again

Strengthened its seat

With the brown cocoon of fascism

It could not stop the crumbling.

The time has come

And growth sprang from forgotten blood.

Pt 5 Epistrephō (the returning, repentant son)

Ah, my moment of release has come!

The floods of martyr blood watered

Seeds of destined ends

And they have overwhelmed me

Like how my birth-pains

Have brought death to my bearer.

With an aura of finality

the red tides came

and my former builders upon them.

An array of laborers, past and present mixed

Peasants, artisans, industrious workers alike

Have brought with them the future.

They halted the machines that bled them

And beneath the banyans, wutong and baobab

They congregate in shade

And recounting their grave sufferings

rise against those who deprive them of food

The hands of Kali, who brings end to time

Have guided them upon the path to my death.

With their flame of righteous anger

They cleansed my throne and scepter

Sweeping clean the parasites and steel cocoon.

Not even my instinctual claws, edged with alienation

A cold balm of plastic and silence

With chains of bubbles and wired cornucopias

Can quiet their compassion.

And with their hands of production

The productors, refusing cold acceptance

drove my blade into my chest;

An act of mercy in my final agony

The likes of which I had never been given.

I understood, then, the prophets

Whose words I warded away;

And I humbly receive this grace.

Yet their sword alone, I know too well,

Cannot bring me true death;

My form lives in spaces

No such blade can reach.

And so I write with my blood-stained claws

Finally allowed the grace of understanding

My one and only gift

With the human warmth of finality

A tale worthy of the lyre

In hands of good storytellers.

Allow my bones to become your stepping stone

A place to rest and reflect

And a stop to somewhere greater;

That is the best I may do.

And the grave maiden of History

Who have favored you grimly

By lifting her veil for you

Shall exact upon you great rewards

For having brought my true death;

May she bless you with kind hearts

To illuminate your glorious future.

I shall submit myself presently

To the sharp edge of the pen and tongue

And the strings of the heart;

Those are the tools that bring me to an end

For here, between the sharp and tender

My remnants are cleansed of evil

Sanctified to fit the sanctuary.

Farewell then.

Accept the blessing my moribund body brings

And remember my faults

So no evil climbs out

From ossified graves

and let no chains bound you again!