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// 35 - The Ballade of Power and Greatness 
// Story: Ponyville & Other Poems 
// by AugieDog 
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Unhurried with measured but frank disdain,
Posterity shoulders the door aside,
The whole of my audience.  I refrain
From noticing, stalwart and dignified.
Control is the key, and I've learned to hide
The sweat as it slickens and thinks me scared.
A swirl of my cape, to the stage I stride:
The powerful always arrive prepared.

I start with the usual sparkling rain
To flavor the air till its crisply fried.
Projecting my patter, I won't constrain
Hyperbole, throwing my pasterns wide.
The audience, silent and squinty-eyed,
Increasingly stretches but hasn't glared.
Attention's a currency I'll not chide:
The powerful always arrive prepared.

Performance will bloom in my soul like grain,
A harvest of wonder too long denied.
I pierce to the heart, to the mind and brain,
And batter them sensible, fears untied.
My fakery's honest and won't abide
Mundane little magics my kinfolk shared.
I reach for effects, not the true and tried:
The powerful always arrive prepared.

O alicorn princess who's never died
And shrugged to return to the stage: I've dared.
I've wrestled to triumph with skill and pride.
The powerful always arrive prepared.