Golden Age | Carlyle R. Phelps

Golden Age:

A golden age promised within gilded origami—
History’s ink dragged on the blueprinted lines of our story. 
The future looms on the paper wings of memento mori. 
The peak of the fold would be the furthest fall from glory. 

Keep a watchful eye amidst the cheerful tarantism.
We gloated at the death of the tarantula, Communism,
Despite its venom flooding morality with collectivism,
And eroding the transcendental pillars with nihilism. 

Red saluting-necromancers re-animated Stalin’s bones—
Rhetorically constructing a more palatable throne
For intelligentsia to play puppet and master to goofy Marx clones—
Capturing the resentful with disparity’s classist groans.  

The Enlightenment’s shadow, likewise, loomed over the nation’s twilight.
Matter eclipsed meaning with systems extracting duty from rights. 
We’ve reasoned ourselves into incoherence and petty fights;
Abandoning the “ought,” we’ve accepted an arbitrary birthright. 

There’s no “is” that will save our bloated society—
Not while we casually eat the young with Swift-ian gluttony. 
A modest proposal? No, it’s a demon sobbing sophistry,
Wielding the crude cudgel of Eugenic philosophy. 

There’s no branch that could save the tree from disease.
So long as Life is not rooted in the stock of the human leaves,
We the people must tend the garden with moral decrees—
If we water mercy, till truth, and harvest love—the ills might ease. 

We’ve a long way to go to prove our metal amidst the waste. 
Our gold seems more like pig-iron on its plump face. 
Surely holy virtue can smelt our fundamentals of grace, 
Into a spring steel strong enough to repel the degeneracy from this place. 

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