…is shot
I read the western canon
I’m not entirely sure what it said
It shot off like a blast
Yet not its shrapnel one might dread
I’m sure it said don’t bother
Unless you’re a century dead
But it was so deliberately written
Carved of papyrus, yellow and worn
Leather bound its sallow pages
Made it desirous even torn
Was it verse or history
A secret codex to forewarn
For that I can never know
I was not witness to it being born
I was very late to the show
Seems they always spoke in riddles
But more likely in the know
For erudite wellsprings and conceptions
Not even dictionaries could forgo
What it all said I can never know for sure
But it inspired me to bestow
Scratched etchings on a modern leaf
Even though history were now dead
For new researchers of that smoking gun,
Archaeological evidence in its thread
Have found its blast less innocent
Twas shot with ill intent
The riddles now deciphered
By the wise and chosen few
Seems cunning ploys the authors cast
From rustic graves hand hewn
Live not in history’s verse but hatred
By the devil’s hand, profane
Eternally we are now indebted
Lest be fooled back there again
Back into the viper’s den
One hundred years hence
We can inspire others too
So best get to scribbling now
And forewarn a future…
