the barely human

(The image represents the Magpie Tales prompt for this week.)

It's the sameness of the scene that most offends,
the chagrin of these units that were men,
the tedium of copies cast in monochrome
as if a ruler had an army baked in clay
(of drudges, skivvies, menials and slaves,
the lowly ones of this sort and of that)
who now await the pleasure of his death
in the claustrophobic confines of his tomb.

That would be bad enough, but this is worse:
they are not subjects of some distant potentate
who thinks in terms of citizens as things
but members of a race that trumpets freedom,
the individual, the grace with which man's born.

They make no sound, beyond the chomping
of their simple fare; they do not laugh;
they dare not look to see themselves in others,
are too downtrodden to communicate,
are barely human. Cattle. They await their fate.