Updating a Favourite Classic Poem

[illustration by Theo Gayer-Anderson]

Ozymandias 

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.”

["Ozymandias of Amarillo, Texas"

sculpture by Lightnin' McDuff]

OZZY

by Mitchell Thompson

@leonsbuddydave

I met a traveller from way the hell off

who said: two gigantic, fucked-up rock legs

be out there in the middle of goddamn nowhere

right next to them covered in shit some kinda big face

looked pretty pissed & upset & whatnot

all damn covered in words

“yo ozymandias here, this my shit”

“better than your shit, get fucked buddy”

not much else tho, just sand

shitloads of sand all over the place