Past-Present-Future, Chameleon on the Doorstep

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I well recall the father of a friend, way back in my childhood, relating how much satisfaction he took from giving local puppet show, “not only in making kids happy, but being in control, manipulating his puppets towards that very end. Sometimes,” he added with a wry grin, I feel like a god out there, pulling the strings..."

The tragedy is that the attraction of power and the potential opportunity to ‘play God’ attracts too many in the adult world for all the wrong reasons...

Terrorists are probably the best examples of such people, convinced they are acting with the best intentions, albeit (literally) as a devil in them drives, but they appear in all shapes and sizes in most if not all areas of modern life, wherever the better part of human nature is inclined to lose its way, often without even realising it.

PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE, CHAMELEON ON THE DOORSTEP

I come in peace, a force for good,
yet am often abused, ill-used by those
unable to channel the full force
for better rather than worse, opening
personal space to private ambition,
Time left to make of what it will,
if not any final say, given all history’s
various ways with words, not to mention
measured invention

I bring hope where weaker forces
sure to fail, yet so easily misunderstood,
misled even into enemy territory,
where mixed feeling would threaten
to confuse issues, take control
for illicit purposes harbouring agendas
comprising a measured tissue
of lies that will, to all intents and purposes
tick all the right boxes

I offer stability wherever promising
enterprises are in danger of foundering
along with all invested interests;
at the same time, I am easily tempted
to play the hero, persuaded even
by my own convictions that any potential
for universal gain has to come
before settling a lasting peace and happiness
upon my personal space

I dress the bones of history with flair,
who am that old chameleon, Power

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2012; rev. 2021

[Note: The original version of this poem was written in 2009 and was first published under the title ‘The Designer’ in my collection, Tracking the Torchbearer, Assembly Books, 2012.] RT