Poem: The Great

We are brought into his chambers, fresh and unsoiled.
Hardened metals we are, the shape of our very choosing.
In regal purity we, to possess, caused no little toil,
And kingly we arrived, disillusioned at the smithery.
Smoke of deception, grime of politics, fire of suffering,
The grim-faced smith wielded adeptly his mallet.

Infants all came, innocent and poised to conquer.
We spat imperial commands and all were answered.
Untainted, we acted with resolve in our very own world,
But like a bolt on the chest, we were soon enough stunned.
For with lofty dreams and imagination each was shipped unfazed,
And, fazed, dumped on reality who wielded with dexterity, fate.

Believe me, we stood ferrous, and fought ferocious,
With monarchic dreams and demands, the world is ours!
But we were blinded in deceit, muddied in politics, burnt in suffering,
With bowed heads we made our requests, scraping and stuttering,
And mundane it became, where our eyes were, so our dreams too.
So fate shaped us, enforced malleability, there was nothing to do.

Nevertheless, in our midst were some, self-named diamonds.
Though undistinguished, firm they were, the smith and his mallet wrath,
Pines in the storm, they stood defiant, each a veritable Prometheus.
Then ceased the mallet, the fatigued smith lay them aside in awe,
Polished and tended by him, they stood lofty, of great expense,
While we who bent on the anvil, under the mallet, only lusted after greatness.