# The Masters

By [Compossible - that which can live together](https://paragraph.com/@compossible) · 2025-01-05

israel, palestine, poetry, deserts

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Is there a bright line 

That separates 

Indifference and contempt 

From the darker

Urge to exterminate?

* * *

  

Surely it is a journey of a thousand steps…

That leads over the 

Mountains of Deceit

Down through the 

Gorge of Avarice 

Passing the

Plains of 

Ignorance and thence 

Through the well trodden 

Valleys of Violence

* * *

  

Until we are led

To the promised 

Uplit lands 

(Where our failures and shame

Can be consigned to 

History, which is only ever

Preserved in the dark)

  

* * *

At last our self-hate 

Can evaporate

In the bright 

Destroying sun

  

* * *

This must be the long

Promised place

Where we will never be

Prey again

Shalom for us, at last

  

* * *

Arriving we notice the others 

Still in our midst

They were useful (for a while) 

For cleaning and carrying and such

(When they remembered their place)

More often than not they were

Unruly mules

We tolerated them

But made sure never to spare the whip 

  

* * *

Now their presence troubles us 

Disturbing in ways we can't quite say

They are an aside

Not fully real

Not like our kind

These half-remembered 

Wailing ghosts 

Begging for their existence

  

* * *

In the valley of the ancient 

Kings 

Hear our roar:

We are the masters now!

  

* * *

The shifting desert sands 

Stretched out serpentine 

Whispering:

Silence

All things shall fail in time

* * *

Read Part X of _Sefirah – Canto for David:_

[

Exodus
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What promise Was forgot or broken To make us so Forsaken?

https://paragraph.xyz

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/56361d50e07175d554200508bb8cd046.jpg)

](https://paragraph.xyz/@compossible/exodus)

Read Part VIII of _Sefirah – Canto for David_:

[

If This Is A Man
----------------

We questioned him hard, hammered him and watched him break into a thousand pieces and shards.

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![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/a0f782c595fd672dc1a5cf0d6439814c.jpg)

](https://paragraph.xyz/@compossible/if-this-is-a-man)

* * *

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/bfeb135135b0c0d305824bc3f72b85ba.png)

AI Art

* * *

**Further reading:**

[

Ozymandias
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Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these...

https://www.poetryfoundation.org

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/75c7ed153fc33f4c442788bcdf3c030b.jpg)

](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias)

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*Originally published on [Compossible - that which can live together](https://paragraph.com/@compossible/the-masters)*