Poem: Another generation passes me by

Another generation passes me by

Another generation passes me by
I sit and know my time will not come.
I retreat into this room of texts
Where I imagine parleys with the dead.

Machiavelli tells me of civil strife
And the virtue that our republics forget.
He comforts me with the exile’s lament:
I will not enter that walled city of which I sing.

An old and broken Max Weber,
In a bitter iron cage, speaks of authority –
Blessed forgotten salve – that our elites
No longer possess, and only true office can restore.

And dear sweet Arnold, whose melancholy storms
Beat against these faraway beaches,
Sings of loss, beauty and unspeakable truths
That our hurried time has no time for.

I leave the infinite conversation for the day
Armed against the hungry generations
Who surround the besieged city in which I dwell
In my crumbling but invincible tower.