Shadows Over the Parthenon

Marble columns rise like ancient bones,
Casting moonlit accusations
Across centuries of broken vows —
Democracy’s first temple
Now haunted by its hollow echo.

See how the shadows lengthen,
Stretching from Athena’s ruins
To Wall Street’s gleaming towers,
Where new gods count their coins
And mock old wisdom.

The agora lies empty,
Save for tourist cameras and security guards,
While modern tyrants trade
In digital drachmas,
Their empires built on silicon and fear.

Tonight, the moon illuminates
What daylight tries to hide:
Graffiti on the sacred stones
Speaking truth in spray-paint prophecy —
“The people’s voice still thunders.”

Between fallen pillars,
Ancient philosophers’ ghosts
Hold midnight assembly,
Their debates carried on the wind
To deaf contemporary ears.

Socrates sips his hemlock still,
But now the poison flows
Through fiber optic cables,
Corrupting what remains
Of our collective soul.

Yet watch —
How protest signs catch moonlight
Like bronze shields of old,
How the crowd’s chant echoes
With Periclean power.

The Parthenon stands witness
To this eternal struggle:
Between the many and the few,
Between wisdom and wealth,
Between what was promised
And what was stolen.

In the deepening dark,
Democracy’s first dream
Refuses to crumble completely —
Each stone remembers
The hands that raised it,
Each shadow points toward
A dawn we must still fight to claim.

For here, beneath stars
That watched Athens rise and fall,
We gather again,
Our voices joining
The timeless chorus:
“Power to the people,
Now and always,
Until shadows flee
And wisdom rules once more.”