Paradise Colonized
(From The Triumph of Strife: an homage to Dante Alighieri and Percy Shelley)

Bad puppets pull the strings the other way
Ensnaring clumsy puppeteers unschooled
In how dependants make dependence pay

Or how the erstwhile colonist gets tooled
By Calibans who know the island well:
Who cannot by Prospero’s words be fooled

Who know the reason why the angel fell
And why his bitter strangled cry ensued
Announcing him content to reign in Hell

In preference to Heaven’s servitude
For slaves do not take kindly to their yoke
And want a free man’s life, however crude

So in the Master’s eye their fingers poke
Who’ve judged his deeds and not the words he spoke