Fire Code

Poem by Rocco Valentini

Artwork Sourced From Pinterest. Artist: Jim Steranko.

Fire Code

by Antonio Rocco S. (Rocco Valentini)

TEN-SEVENTY 

Sigmas do not exist
Because power does not lie
In what you call yourself
It lies in what others believe you hold.

TEN-SEVENTY 

Rejecting the social hierarchy
Doesn’t change your position in it
Nor does it change
Your influence over it.

TEN-SEVENTY 

Obscurity rebranded
Is still irrelevance.
The world doesn’t bend
For those who simply step aside.

TEN-SEVENTY 

In a society likened to a burning building
He who watches the blaze without lifting a hand
Stands not with the hero
But with the arsonist.

TEN-SEVENTY 

Stand before the ruin or above it
But never beneath or beside it. 
Be the Alpha who prevents the fall
Or who rises like it never broke him.

Footnote: TEN-SEVENTY is police code for fire.