The ghost of life: These lifeless things

As I understand it, Ozymandias was a Greek name for the pharaoh Rameses II; I do not know whether it refers to the Egyptian’s mama and combat boots. The only reason I know of him is because Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a poem about the pathetic and pointless remains of a self-aggrandizing tyrant of former times.

Even in high school, the arid arrogance of the colossus’ broken old statue struck me. Back then, I didn’t know Ozymandias was real. Now that I do, I give him more credit than I did—Rameses the Great had chops. He was a warrior king, successful in battle. He brought wealth to Egypt. He built temples, tombs and art works. He’s also posited as the pharaoh of the Exodus, and apparently looked a lot like Yul Brynner.

Shelley does a bang-up job taking the piss here, and I’ve recently been struck by how applicable this description is to the current occupant of the White House. Cadet Bonespurs projects all the megalomania the poet documents, but with none of the accomplishments to give substance to the broken monument. We certainly recognize the wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command manqué. I really don’t much fancy thinking about his vast and trunkless legs, thank you very much, but I’d pay real money for a glimpse of a shattered visage half-sunk in sand.

As to looking on the Kleptocrat’s works—the destruction, corruption and misery that have been his focus since he first announced his candidacy—yeah, I do despair. We are in danger of becoming the wasteland that Shelley limns, boundless and bare around the decay of that colossal wreck.

“Ozymandias”

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. 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 words appear:

'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.