“My personal freedom, confirmed by the liberty of all, extends to infinity.” – Bakunin

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The Tennis court was full when I arrived.
And so I stood alone and not alone
Among the statesmen gathered there to bring
Democracy unto the realm in full.

We wonder, often, how to best the worst,
And I admire men from ages past
Who helped the world become a better place.
A better place.
A shame then that some men I love would spur
The gain of earth for gain of self employ.

Our sense of self is almost always wrong.
But only after many years of life
Did I then learn that fundamental truth.

In politics I sought my gain but lost
My every friend. Gave way to mistresses
Who then confirmed the old Shakespearean
Truism: power is perversity.

And so I gave up states and took to seas
Exotic, foreign, full of life and love.
Untainted islanders had proved our lives
In cities, states, and governments as mere
Pretension. We’re no wiser than a child
Who mindless shoves their deadened toys at one
Another; those they like the best shall go
Away to fight, and may return victorious
Or if they die, they die for glory. Ohhh! Romance!

But Polynesian doctrines weren’t for me.
Too many drawn out rites, a strange recall
To troubled Catholic pasts I bear in mind.

So to the East I travelled, met a man—
A Hindoo Shaman—who demonstrated
That Self is Brahma wholly realized;
So you are Self and I am Self, and we
Together form True Self exalted high;

But when I took that enterprise too far
I lost the final remnants of my mind
And went insane.

Which brings me back to France… and look around!
The tennis court is full today with men
Who look so proud of what they’ve done as one.
They’ve made the world a better place, took stands
Against the old regimes, their legacies.

“Lo, Nothing that they’ve done can be undone.”
That is the Lord’s decree.

A thousand structures fail, no hierarchy stays,
But maybe, maybe, looking into faces full of hope
And inspiration, passion, love, perhaps
There is a hope. That this new structure, new
Regime, could make the world a stable place.
A stable place.
A stable.

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