Tag: ancient rome
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Hannibal ad portas
“Hannibal ad portas! Hannibal ad portas! Hannibal ad portas!“ Three times the evil tribe’s sighter cried out, so worsenings by lore arrive. Having completed his report, that sorest decree The breathless scout fell down unrestoringly, ensured of glory’s leaves. To flound’ring heart his yet-unstoried hand brief clamoured The foundling died without further sound, unphantomed unto…
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The death of Antinous
The retinues have filed out for the night With each subsequent wine, the whiny entitled Emperor chides His lover and mate for suggesting castration “So that further decay might be held at bay!” That higher registers he should maintain Until no brown remained in the Emperor’s mane, Gone the way of his eyes, the same…
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Drowned in the Nile to renew a Tiberside tyrant’s flagging vigour, or Emperor Hadrian’s lost love poems
Aquila at nighttime zenith His toga peeled back appealingly, revealing Antinous’s yet-congealing future features His fallow chin without shadow of beard’s hint Hadrian’s preying gaze ere surveillant Signalled a willingness to be availed Of; he the idle cat His captor the long rows of well bedded mint. By dint his status, a rustic Below but…
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Yellowism
For every Roman soldier dead Sow daffodil bulbs in his stead In memory, the century flower Endowed with egg or butter’s burnished splendour.
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Walbrook Mithraeum
Barring time travel’s starry unveilment, or wormhole displacement We’ll never know how Mithras was worshipped below this pavement At Walbrook. This won’t brook our efforts to decode the frescoes in wall nooks, Brooks where flowed unctuously the lumbering blood of a missed Christ, More questions these deceptive inscriptions provide, Yet we continue trying to tease…
Alchemisland 