10 Ramadan

  OUR HAPPILY POWERLESS CORE

       In a disordered imagination lies the source  of human un-
          happiness.  It makes us wander across the seas from one
         fantasy to another, and if its spell leaves us in the end, it
         is by then too late; the hour strikes and the man dies, de-
          testing life.
                                        -Napoleon

The terrible struggles, gun-boat gray, gray fog and
  mist against chalk cliffs at Dover,

historical rampages, swarm of weird Mongols
who seemed to take such rare pleasure in destruction.

endless forced marches, the French into Moscow
in winter led by such a diminutive Napoleon

the comebacks of fraudulent despots, their
gargantuan struggles to win a few

years or months, or even just a
few days of power,

the power-mad, lusting for supreme
command and
authority, over life and
  death, to their
    own satisfaction, the
wobbly Fun House Mirror that
  portrays them gigantic, heads as

    large as the globe, bodies mere
      limp macaroni—

the earth's surface
rutted with these
hobnail boot tyrants that are our

own selves seeking advantage
over the light of our already
happily powerless core