Digging for Ozymandias
an acrostic ‘golden shovel’ poem
P eriscopes raised, sweeping, surveying round
E very angle, straining atrophied nerves the
R etinas of the lucky, the few, take in decay
C aved-in civility, strewn-about cadavers of
Y oung and old, who marched to the beat of that
B rave new world, of hubris colossal
Y et went down with the epic wreck
S quandering reserves thought boundless
S ixty days huddled in the bunkers … and
H eat from the Blaze still lingers, laying bare
E very extinguished hope the
S urvivors dared to keep alive, lone
H omesick with no home left and
E xiled with no place to go, a level
L ower than living Hell, nothing but sands
L anguid limbs dig, grasp and stretch
E xhuming scraps near and far
Y et life slips irreversibly away.
Here are the final lines of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias:
ㅤㅤLook on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
ㅤㅤNothing beside remains. Round the decay
ㅤㅤOf that colossal…
