05/23/2023
Ubi Romae Gloria?
Wrought from iron in the Age of Iron
you spread like a fungus
around the toilet bowl of the Mediterranean,
ganglia crawling to Crimea,
Scotland's stones, down the damp yeast
of the fecund Nile into the womb of Africa.
You spread like cold fire
across Gallic grainfields, Hispania's dirt,
into the forests of the German trees
and all the way to the skirts of Persia --
where the fire stopped.
Your legions could not hold forever.
Your roads and fleets could not forever bind
people you conquered and corrupted,
taxed, exploited and militarized
at the point of your sword
to the cadence of your legions.
When the fabric has rotted
not even stitches can prevent the tearing.
When republics are smothered
and the bonds between people and state
are bitten through,
not even golden empires survive.
