the builders

In ancient caves eons past
the hunt was crayoned onto walls
in elegant soft coloured stone on stone
the glorious drama of their lives

In ancient pyramids millennia past
kings and pharaohs lay entombed as gods
the epic stories of their lives carved
into stone walls illumed in gold

In ancient cathedrals and mosques centuries past
the lives of saints depicted in statues or words
haunted guilt and drove civilizations
to mythic hopes illumed on vellum

Straight up almost to the clouds a century ago
commerce strove to supersede hope with cash
and drive industry and economics
into laws debated in courts and flayed on the backs of the poor

More recently sports palaces have mushroomed
into circuses and dominated sense each
stereotypically more garish than the last
splashed onto paper and the media every hour

Soon caves will be in vogue
and all will fall into a tepid swamp
as insects start to etch the hunt
in hives and webs and domes around the world.