I dabbled in Old Norse at 22,
which meant I got Icelandic history.
I learned that when a culture’s in demise,
when petty kings are facing bitter change,
they’re driven to record what’s ending then,
with words and pictures or revolting ways.

When England turned away from rural ways,
toward industry and fenced enclosure too,
its writers penned romantic novels then;
its artists painted dying history.
Such seems a fit reaction to the change
that signifies a cultural demise.

White male supremacy is in demise.
The trends are vectoring to other ways.
We sense for 50 years the winds of change;
we feel perspective modifying, too.
The contours of our future history
have twisted möbius-like, from what was then.

The 60s let us see it coming then.
Not even experts dared foretell demise,
but some of us decanted history.
We contemplated the rambunctious ways
of typical Americans – all too
impulsive to consider how we change.

The predecessors of our climate change,
the air pollution that we measured then,
the toxins and the global traffic too,
all formed the roux that based today’s demise.
Full loudly leaders went their wonted ways
and cooked the books, repeating history.

It’s too late now to turn the history
we’re all about to write. We cannot change
the courses set and stuck in senate ways.
Who gave us wheel and ordered fire then,
were never special. Faced with their demise,
we’re set for ruckus, and for pyre too.

We see their failing ways, and history
will write them too far down, who couldn’t change
the flash and flail, and then came their demise.