Mourning His Absence

The legendary tyrant who loved
his own, disowned, disparaged and 
dispatched all others, raging against 
risible expectations of justice leaves 
unassuageable grief among those his 
tyranny benefited, as an orgy of 
sackcloth and ashes among the wailing
deprived slowly fades, memory of his 
misdeed carried to the grave, there 
deposited and dreary life carries on 
for the dispossessed who worshiped him 
as divinity incarnate in his crude cruelties
for he was one of theirs. When dictators 
of truly unwholesome dispensation, 
those who inspire the petty despots 
succeed to the Grim Reaper's irresistible 
invitation leave behind their dread legacy 
of fear and broken lives, slaughter and
state dysfunction, the curses following 
his pompous state funeral cortege are muted, 
but universal and passionate. In due time 
human memory mellows and the human
condition being irresolvable, fallible
memory recalls a time with little
resemblance to reality, where the
long departed murderer of peoples'
hopes and aspirations is fondly
recalled, transformed miraculously,
a martyr for his suffering people.