Laid Upon Their Alters
"Laid Upon Their Alters"
qhapaq hucha
it begins at birth
the most precious
resource of all
we are registered,
audited, one by one
under the rod measured
by lizard rule
the capacocha
children of complacency
dumbed down, some
thorns, uppity, removed
heads counted
to be held high
as trophies, those played
and won
for the greater good
oh yes,
we belong;
we belong,
we’ve always belonged,
to the ruling class
sapa inca
orders sacrifice, daily
all are held up to the Sun
of the others’ huacas,
accountable,
we are ears of corn
sheared and scattered
kurnels sown to replenish
a new world
fresh crops
laid upon
their oily alters
falls the empires
one by one
like conquistadors
they dissolve us
holy sees parted
red and bleeding
we are all children
well drugged
foreplay for prophecies
all war rooms
cleanly wiped
disinfected, by fire
baptised deja vu
submerged
together
we are something else
to behold
realm of the four parts
these final moments
matter
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
“With their royalty and focus of worship destroyed,
the general population readily accepted Spanish rule
as “what was done.” This created local assistance which,
along with outside factors, allowed the Spanish
to completely conquer the region by 1572,
marking the end of the Inca Empire.“
“This pattern of manipulating a people’s concept
of ideological power, in conjunction with
relational and material power,
is seen throughout history
and is often a large component
of the fall of great empires.”
"That’s why the banalities matter.
When the real issues come up, healthy states,
the ones capable of handling and minimizing
everyday dysfunction, have a great deal more capacity
to respond than those happily waltzing toward their end.
But by the time the obvious, glaring crisis arrives
and the true scale of the problem becomes clear, it’s far too late.
The disaster—a major crisis of political legitimacy, a pandemic,
a climate catastrophe—doesn’t so much break the system
as show just how broken the system already was."
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