Image credit: Vera Petruk/Shutterstock.com

In those times we read the ancient book
The masters of our little universe were alchemists
and in awe we followed their dictates
They fed on spells and death and hate
into the mess of the nigredo each must fall
if we were to rise at all

I often felt the wisdom they peddled
to the unsuspecting masses was quite suspect indeed
but I followed in any case in thrall
to powers unseen and perhaps dread
And the less of that that’s said
the better as my master often would say
On the coldest, winteriest days
when too many suffered and bled

None of us know anything that’s the simple truth of it all
and yet we look to others for honesty and objectivity
and when written in some ageing text
in symbols and languages known to few
then from this wellspring of false knowledge
everyone knelt and drew such sustenance
that fools might find
We may as well have lost our minds

I believed too long to call myself
a creature of intelligence
And yet I proclaimed as much as any
That from the book we found the secrets of the universe
And our lies reached us
like our ancient curse
And bled into the morning
and the aeons yet to come till
Humanity was quite undone
And so was I

(c) Helen M Valentina 2017