Penance Hiatus

Like the Phoenix of fable

the elite democracy of like-minded

kleptocracy has agreed to an interregnum

the rage of the oppressed and downtrodden

cannot this time be so readily overcome

and their viral demands of resignation

from a people too long mired in war

their own and those of their neighbours

now suffering privation and the

misery of death stalking

through a global pandemic

while their government concerns itself

with the orders of a malign state

determined to weigh its authority over

those it means to serve as proxies in its

own interests will have no more of it.

Neglect and disorder, disinterest 

in the well-being of a nation's dependents

will go so far and so far only when

millions await rescue from a living nightmare

from which they cannot awake. But wait

the government has acquiesced to its people's

demands and all will be well in the

belief of short memories and a re-assembling

of former principals the better to reset

the parameters and promises of deliverance

from the current maelstrom, familiar faces

will return proffering the salvation of

a minor hell, confident their captive audience

will forgive, forget and relent.