All Scepters Disowned Poem by Kurt Philip Behm

I don't bow to money,
I don't bow to fame

I kneel to that one thing,
that time cannot change

I don't speak for ‘right, '
and won't speak for ‘wrong'

My liege is the truth,
all court jesters gone

I don't hope to be knighted,
my shield more concave

And rejecting all title,
the past still enslaved

My will lay unbroken,
my heart for a throne

A crown jeweled with memory,
—all scepters disowned

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June,2017)