Cicero
When Cicero picked up Lentulus
at his house to walk him to his execution,
of what did they converse?
Too clever to believe the afterlife
amounts to much, Cicero
probably declaimed on Glory,
how virtuous souls gain
eternal renown. Like Achilles,
striding through Hades’ dreary mists,
gloating on his fame. The town
was still brick and wood then,
not yet marbleized. A stench
from rot and raw sewage
that would make us retch and squint
out tears was just urban air
these Romans ignored for Empire.
A V-tailed kite hovered
above the new Temple of Juno,
but signs unseen are no signs.
Lost in eloquence, Cicero forgot
to hike up his toga, letting it
trail in the muck. Lentulus
would suddenly turn and bend
from his erect and silent display
of arrogant nonchalance
to spit into some loutish face
jeering in the gauntlet line
that the mob, aroused for circus
more than civic rage, allowed
this death procession for space.
Under the Tullianum portal,
Cicero made courteous regrets
for failing to come in,
another engagement, he said,
beckoning to a slave to hand
Lentulus a parcel of figs
from his villa in Tusculum. Ad astra,
he elocuted for the crowd
to hear, deeds and crimes of men
appear as alike as fluffy seeds
that gust loose and fly aloft
on summer breezes to our eyes
that death makes newly wise.
at his house to walk him to his execution,
of what did they converse?
Too clever to believe the afterlife
amounts to much, Cicero
probably declaimed on Glory,
how virtuous souls gain
eternal renown. Like Achilles,
striding through Hades’ dreary mists,
gloating on his fame. The town
was still brick and wood then,
not yet marbleized. A stench
from rot and raw sewage
that would make us retch and squint
out tears was just urban air
these Romans ignored for Empire.
A V-tailed kite hovered
above the new Temple of Juno,
but signs unseen are no signs.
Lost in eloquence, Cicero forgot
to hike up his toga, letting it
trail in the muck. Lentulus
would suddenly turn and bend
from his erect and silent display
of arrogant nonchalance
to spit into some loutish face
jeering in the gauntlet line
that the mob, aroused for circus
more than civic rage, allowed
this death procession for space.
Under the Tullianum portal,
Cicero made courteous regrets
for failing to come in,
another engagement, he said,
beckoning to a slave to hand
Lentulus a parcel of figs
from his villa in Tusculum. Ad astra,
he elocuted for the crowd
to hear, deeds and crimes of men
appear as alike as fluffy seeds
that gust loose and fly aloft
on summer breezes to our eyes
that death makes newly wise.
