Alea Iacta Est

Rubicon

Purified women and concubines populate the forum at early hours
and merchants trade spices, and tools, and crafted gifts
and musicians enchant their pleasing tunes and let ring their lyres and harps
that sound like the spring in the emperor’s yard…

…but the emperor is gone, gone for long.

Midday beams illuminate the streets
where horses draw carriages, and servants bear palanquins
while consuls and praetors eat lunch in their homes
laying, lined up like the emperor’s personal patrols…

…but the emperor is gone, gone for long.

Seven hills glow in delirious dusk
and the circus’s sand reflects the gold of the sun.
The arches of the amphitheatrum break the velvet glance on the cope
that looks like the emperor’s robe…

…but the emperor is gone, gone for long.

Fresh rippling crystal spring water reverberates through the thermae,
men exercise, and women bathe, and slaves serve both (and themselves).
In devotion and peace await all of them the fall of the night
in the complex men had built for the emperor’s delight.

…but the emperor is gone, gone for long…

…and in the midst of the night he’d prove all of them wrong

when his armies of wrath crossed the Rubicon!