is the fifth richest man in the world;

a harvester of pearls: our small talk

like algae-rich waters and tides –new births, 

divorces, prizes our children acquire – 

feeding and keeping the oysters alive.

is a master of illusion: figures in captioned 

poses, screen and light; shadows that dance 

on cave walls. Dramas that make us muse, lean 

in, post notes like medieval glosses in the margins

of someone else’s domestic scenes; illuminators

to an epic chant, a rhapsody’s god-dream.

is the Ideal Prince, accepting the burden 

of princedoms, glory, survival, to jettison distinctions: 

good and depraved; monarch and something human 

saved. Better to be loved and feared rather than 

admired, or worse, revered. A lord who understands 

the desire to acquire. A magician with two hands.

is a Philosopher King, able to discourse on goodness, 

justice, corrupting pride; hold court on high ideas: 

opinion, false truths, reality– a theory of forms 

that casts our lives in cycles, fruit and fallow; sinners 

redeemed. A god’s will altered; a cave master’s dream.