CBQ

Child of Bessemer and Fulton,
a dynamo of mechanical volition
With coal-smeared hands you bore
the bones of the earth
from the grave to the crematorium,
to search for a yellow glint amongst the ashes

A shady shelf along a trail
discovered on a summer’s afternoon
Walked for years this way
but only now do the pine-wood bones emerge from the underbrush of
a path trodden ten hundred times
You took on water here
and men in brown breeches and scally-caps
fed you like a king

A log on the stone and a pipe, ruddy iron,
a dull metallic glint amongst the gravel:
your sole survivors,
the only reminders of how,
once,
you were king

Where now the distant steam-blast
And the clink-clank, clink-clank,
a chugging Chicago blues combo?
Ozymandias, where are you now?

July 2010