This is an extended version that I have entered into the Laura Thomas Joung poets competition.
One, Cause, Catalyst
Make it not ones duty to tempt fate,
Its patience runs shallow
And threads may be snipped.
Would you be the one to change your path?
Who is the fool to test these capricious blues?
And who will be left to dangle on the fraying ropes?
I am the One,
I am the Cause.
I am the catalyst for Change.
I am the sheep among the free thinkers
gathering to my side the slaves in wolves clothing.
Lighting the fuse, the chain reaction.
You stand before me and ask
“Who is it that questions our walls?
Who takes our order and throw back chaos?”
“My name is the whisper in the storm,
the shadow on the twelfth chime.
But it is not my name that makes me.”
“You tremble because
I am the One, the Cause,
I am the catalyst for Change”
You fall like Troy,
fleeing before the deluge.
The deluge that has taken your authority, city.
Ascending your sovereign cathedra
A grin, only a twitch,
signs invisible to see.
Invisible to all but me.
Now my word is law,
I am the One.
I come to spread my cause.
My reasons are my own
but that shall not stop me, top me
The catalyst is used in the reaction
but its effects remain.
Remember me, my friends
“Remember, remember”
The words numb my lips
as I stand below the podium
I climb before the crowds,
Blurs in time, blurred in identity.
I send them on their way, my way.
Telling them “our freedom is not here”.
Giving them the chance to forge their own.
Letting them tempt their fate.
As I have tempted mine.
