Tag: rome
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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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An examination of force
Long gone the days Of legions unafraid Chasing Mithridates From the city walls To the shores of Euphrates. The scored shield of the gloried legion, Now a sprouting boundless must have edges found for it. The pitiless strength must be fitted With satin gloves more fitting For making love poetry Than subduing rebel tribes. This…
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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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Natural boundaries
The end of all rainbows Where mightiness ends Where mightier no longer lends itself To prolonging Rome. Let clefts And shelves and sheets and seas And peaks and marshes rank with disease Mark borders, beyond which no Roman feet No roman fleets No roman steels Shall seek to steal Or impose leanmaking tithes A screaming…
Alchemisland 