Caliban speaks
It was not a special night
The moon was as it had been — dull,
Dull as the enchained nights
And days of my servitude.
The breeze was hesitant, heavy.
The humidity was unforgiving, like all
The unforgiving nights before,
Mud-bound, hagseed, a thing of darkness.
The world still turned; their eyes still mocked.
Somewhere in the distant brightness of the city lights
A hum like a drum rolling on its side, droned.
My thrice-crowned King whispered, like sweet cooings,
Concupiscent seductions, heavy rope,
Binding, coarse and eating into dark flesh.
I went on
It was not a special night.
But at the last twist of the knife — I lost count how many -
And as the old man whimpered, his golden crown
Drowning in a ruby pool,
An ever widening abyss,
I thought the night was salvaged.
©Nikhil 2020
This was in response to a prompt suggested by J.D. Harms to flip the Master/Servant dialectic. I had initially wished to write a poem about Hegel and Marx, but I went instead with a Shakespearean allusion, with Caliban contemplating and murdering Prospero, his Captor.
I might still write a Hegelian/Marxist poem!
