Faceless Ghosts Of Vanity
© Surazeus
2026 08 22

With elegant grace of artistic faith
I stroll awed along labyrinthine streets
over sculptured bridge of the timeless river
in majestic city of golden light
where sun-bleached marble temples crown high hills
as silent sentinels of grand events.

On time-worn cobblestones of urgent care,
where centuries of footsteps echo soft,
I wander slow past weathered stone facades
encrusted with dust of eras long past,
to explore crumbling palaces of pride
where spirits of antiquity watch me.

Beneath palimpsest of history I read
tales of many generations concealed
in monumental plays of fortitude,
performed by long-forgotten dynasties
in chronicles of sorrow etched in stone
by endless wind of change that knows my name.

Anchored in bedrock of brave principles
on foundation fused in soil of desire,
this sprawling palace of some tyrant king
arrests the natural landscape with contempt,
now heavy with unspeakable despair
that still asserts authority of death.

Despite bombastic arrogance of time
that crushes dynasties of kings to dust,
I stroll with ostentatious obviousness
that my genetic coils of spirit grief
unravel from flesh of those royal fools
who crowned themselves great rulers over fate.

Awake this prayerless hour of vivid hope
in open-air archive of human triumph,
that pulses still beneath ruins of fate,
I explore grand monument of endurance,
that looms proud against erosion of time,
at veil worn thin between me and the past.

These standard feelings of the long-gone past,
that shimmers in sunrays on feet-worn streets,
stir in hearts of every human being
who visits ancient cities of the world,
so I must laugh that my heart feels them too,
though I wear mask of innocent respect.

Trapped by nostalgia for time-unspooled past,
I photograph with eye-phone of my heart
myself before grand monuments to pride
where men who played god on stage of this city
are now but faceless ghosts of vanity
whose selfish commands whisper in the breeze.

surazeus.blogspot.com/2026/08/…

Orpheus photographs selfies of himself all over the city of Rome, then posts them on social media for his friends back home in Glasgow and Seattle.

#Poetry #Poem #Pastoral #Necropastoral #MetaModernism #Transrealism #NewSublimity #NewRomanticism #AmericanDream #Cinemism #Existentialism #Surrealism #NegativeCapability #NewGnosticism #MetaRealism #NewTranscendentalism #Astarism