Li’l bohemians

Twelve seconds before midnight,
the imitation fete dispersed
in thin wisps of colored vapor.
We, distinguished pedestrians,
stood dumbstruck holding our cloaks
and bags of precious stones.
The time of bastards had arrived.
All contradictions considered, we
did look quite smashing, arrayed
in exotic fabrics woven
by domestic hands and masks so ornate
that even the petty bourgeois
in their stapled paper hats had to blush.
Seeing their faces all flushed
with creepy crimson always wrests
a grin from these usually melancholy lips.
Then, the great crash, as some poor
leftover from the Victorian era slipped
on another’s dribbled mockery.
The parapets went down without a fuss,
followed soon after by the Tours
and lode bearing walls, the whole chateau
fallen to dazzling dust! The show
would’ve fit well on a postcard. Of course,
some audacious so-and-so
with a head full of dumbfuckery
scaled the rubble and began shouting
something about apple-pies and hierarchy.
We let him go on for a minute,
because we do possess the modicum
of courtesy needs to live in society-at-large,
but only for a minute. After that, we left him
to the serfs, with their leprosy and pitchforks.
Some called it a triumph
of humankind’s communal instinct.
They were the next to go.

-r. miller