Shelley, the Prophet

By Andrew R. Duckworth

A prophet once spoke of Ozymandias
And the irony of a ruined empire
In a barren desert- his boasts,
His taunts, himself gone to grave,
No one around that knew him,
No one around at all.

Ozymandias resurrected,
Saying “Look upon my works.”
He’s in the halls of power,
He’s developing new bodies-
He’s developing minds
That need no body.

And so it once happened,
It happens again- history’s loop.

I first read Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” a long time ago. It’s a poem about the irony of despots who claim to be ruler of rulers who eventually reach the same fate of every figure of history. To make the irony even greater, the only trace of his empire that remains lies buried in the desert. No one will ever come close to capturing quite what Shelley did with the fourteen line poem. My poem is not an attempt to come close to it. It is rather a review of that particular poem, “Ozymandias,” and a reflection of where we currently are as a society, as the prideful creatures we are. Today, we are surrounded by a great number of despots, each of them promising prosperity through “convenience,” but ultimately for a single purpose: their own control and the preservation of such control. Starmer, Trump, Xi Jinping, Putin, literally any EU leader (take your pick), they are all scrambling to establish self before their people- the spirit of Ozymandias resurrected. Freedom, true liberty, is a thing of the past in these days. The idea of liberty has become, sadly, a facade for the most tyrannical among us. Artificial Intelligence, Digital IDs, and Central Bank Digital currencies are tools of the tyrannical to enact their sickness upon the world. That is my opinion, for what it’s worth. But Pride only leads to one thing.