Sarah Dylan
New member
Right, so I've just started college and in my classics class we've just been given our first piece of homework: to writing a foreign observation report in any format that includes a description of Rome in some way between 80 and 40BC. I decided to write a poem - all of it is based on class notes so it's accurate. Please tell me if you think this will be ok?
(Sorry it's long but it's quick and easy to read so please bare with me)
A skeletal graveyard,
Conquests of Rome.
Their mighty rivals
Diminished to
Ruined houses and
Abandoned towns.
Flags still fly
The celebrated names
Of the beaten.
Their inhabitants
Could not
Resist
Rome's clutching hands
Their gravitational force
Sucking you dry.
My home, at least
Too far, is safe
I am stranger to these lands
Looking on at the unfriendly haze
Drawing ever closer
To wary eyes.
It is heard so often
Unreal tales of archaic destruction
A reality in this stone and grass country.
In my litter
Hiding from the stench
I spy the walking dead
In their makeshift tombs
Lying in their mud beds
Waiting
For the black tide.
Funny,
I think
Furthest from the heart of Rome
Are its own blood
And closer still
The tombs
In eternal comfort
Set in stone
Fanned by cyprus'
Frittering in wafts of cassia and myrrh
Dying the death of luxury
Better than my family live
In that Grecian town .
The mouth of Rome
A great gate
Throwing me into the
Torrent of life
A writhing mass of
Flawed saints
Flooding the streets
With their calls of
Bargains
And cut prices.
A casual splatter of buildings
In their disarray.
I expect more from the
Heart of the
World.
I stand in this swirling congestion
My feet implanted in dirt
Yet I wonder where I have left them
As familiar sights pass by
In a muddle of mules
And heated apprentices.
I stumble through the throng
As wailing tear-whores
Sing songs of sadistic pleasure
In my ears
Their money-painted faces
Distraught with greed
As they show off
Fake sadness for a much missed stranger.
I myself cannot see
The honour
In paid flattery
In the absence
Of whose
Who cared?
As I ask a person
Face a canvas in the crowd of vultures
Features I will never know again
I ask him
Where I can find a bed
In this unsleeping city?
In a word ejaculation
His voice flies by my ears
As he points to various hills
And is gone
By the time I turn to thank him.
Passed through the line
Like a factory part
I discover the ranking in heights
Each hill a home
For a specific income.
As a well respected Greek
I expect to sleep comfortably
Yet every finger points
To the towering apartments
Made from the greed of dismissive hands
And the stone
So untidily thrown together Into a "home"
And as I stand
In awe of the mighty mess
I hear the sound
Before I see the slide
And the crumble
Of a sky-high slum
Falling back into dirt
Where it belongs
And bringing with it
The lives of those
Who did not check for cracks.
In my clean attire
With my oil soaked skin
I trust the exploiting mind
Of a wealthy roman
As I make my way
To the Caelian hill.
Eyes inspect my leather sandals
And my dewy skin
With appreciation
And coins jingle inconspicuously
In gravitational wallets.
"A dinner, my friend?"
"A bed to sleep?"
My telling smile
Accepts the offer
My experienced mind
Bloats with a smug air
As I think of the people
Fallen to mud and fire
Because they didn't think as I did
To test the greed of a new money Roman.
A grand house
Made form the hands of slaves
And the pockets of the previous occupants
Of my seat
Who were not so careful.
Fish to the table and
Smiles to the stranger
Wrongly thinking they can fool
They offer me the bejewelled fish
With the finest stones.
I take and eat
As they ask of my daughter
Back in the cradle of the gods
And of her contracts to marriage
That do not exist.
Fine clothed master of the house
Asks if I appreciate such
Abundant hospitality
I do, I say
Very much so
But I regret
I must leave tomorrow
My business in the city is short lived
And my daughter awaits her father
Perhaps I will return one day
And share some more wine and vomit?
A hand on my shoulder
A brisk eye to my eye
He tells me that I cannot leave
Until I have appreciated this city
And have seen the temples and shrines
And the Palatine hill.
Alas, it cannot be done
Another life, perhaps.
But of my home, they ask
May they keep me In their calling?
Of course, there is no
Suspicion
In written tongue.
In a hasty rush
I leave this city and
Flee for Greece
And a waiting family
But returning
A waiting stranger, as well
Demanding my daughter
As a payment for jewels
To be a servant wife
To a homosexual Roman.
My careless hand
Had painted my agreement
On the scroll of
On the scroll of his left hand
And the knife at my throat
Willed me to allow
The theft of a daughter
Which I cannot prevent.
In a boomerang
Of cunning wit
I must now return to the brutal city
If I ever again wish
To see my child
In doing so
I will again owe to them
Another piece of my life
As is the mind
Of a Roman
Oriented.
(Sorry it's long but it's quick and easy to read so please bare with me)
A skeletal graveyard,
Conquests of Rome.
Their mighty rivals
Diminished to
Ruined houses and
Abandoned towns.
Flags still fly
The celebrated names
Of the beaten.
Their inhabitants
Could not
Resist
Rome's clutching hands
Their gravitational force
Sucking you dry.
My home, at least
Too far, is safe
I am stranger to these lands
Looking on at the unfriendly haze
Drawing ever closer
To wary eyes.
It is heard so often
Unreal tales of archaic destruction
A reality in this stone and grass country.
In my litter
Hiding from the stench
I spy the walking dead
In their makeshift tombs
Lying in their mud beds
Waiting
For the black tide.
Funny,
I think
Furthest from the heart of Rome
Are its own blood
And closer still
The tombs
In eternal comfort
Set in stone
Fanned by cyprus'
Frittering in wafts of cassia and myrrh
Dying the death of luxury
Better than my family live
In that Grecian town .
The mouth of Rome
A great gate
Throwing me into the
Torrent of life
A writhing mass of
Flawed saints
Flooding the streets
With their calls of
Bargains
And cut prices.
A casual splatter of buildings
In their disarray.
I expect more from the
Heart of the
World.
I stand in this swirling congestion
My feet implanted in dirt
Yet I wonder where I have left them
As familiar sights pass by
In a muddle of mules
And heated apprentices.
I stumble through the throng
As wailing tear-whores
Sing songs of sadistic pleasure
In my ears
Their money-painted faces
Distraught with greed
As they show off
Fake sadness for a much missed stranger.
I myself cannot see
The honour
In paid flattery
In the absence
Of whose
Who cared?
As I ask a person
Face a canvas in the crowd of vultures
Features I will never know again
I ask him
Where I can find a bed
In this unsleeping city?
In a word ejaculation
His voice flies by my ears
As he points to various hills
And is gone
By the time I turn to thank him.
Passed through the line
Like a factory part
I discover the ranking in heights
Each hill a home
For a specific income.
As a well respected Greek
I expect to sleep comfortably
Yet every finger points
To the towering apartments
Made from the greed of dismissive hands
And the stone
So untidily thrown together Into a "home"
And as I stand
In awe of the mighty mess
I hear the sound
Before I see the slide
And the crumble
Of a sky-high slum
Falling back into dirt
Where it belongs
And bringing with it
The lives of those
Who did not check for cracks.
In my clean attire
With my oil soaked skin
I trust the exploiting mind
Of a wealthy roman
As I make my way
To the Caelian hill.
Eyes inspect my leather sandals
And my dewy skin
With appreciation
And coins jingle inconspicuously
In gravitational wallets.
"A dinner, my friend?"
"A bed to sleep?"
My telling smile
Accepts the offer
My experienced mind
Bloats with a smug air
As I think of the people
Fallen to mud and fire
Because they didn't think as I did
To test the greed of a new money Roman.
A grand house
Made form the hands of slaves
And the pockets of the previous occupants
Of my seat
Who were not so careful.
Fish to the table and
Smiles to the stranger
Wrongly thinking they can fool
They offer me the bejewelled fish
With the finest stones.
I take and eat
As they ask of my daughter
Back in the cradle of the gods
And of her contracts to marriage
That do not exist.
Fine clothed master of the house
Asks if I appreciate such
Abundant hospitality
I do, I say
Very much so
But I regret
I must leave tomorrow
My business in the city is short lived
And my daughter awaits her father
Perhaps I will return one day
And share some more wine and vomit?
A hand on my shoulder
A brisk eye to my eye
He tells me that I cannot leave
Until I have appreciated this city
And have seen the temples and shrines
And the Palatine hill.
Alas, it cannot be done
Another life, perhaps.
But of my home, they ask
May they keep me In their calling?
Of course, there is no
Suspicion
In written tongue.
In a hasty rush
I leave this city and
Flee for Greece
And a waiting family
But returning
A waiting stranger, as well
Demanding my daughter
As a payment for jewels
To be a servant wife
To a homosexual Roman.
My careless hand
Had painted my agreement
On the scroll of
On the scroll of his left hand
And the knife at my throat
Willed me to allow
The theft of a daughter
Which I cannot prevent.
In a boomerang
Of cunning wit
I must now return to the brutal city
If I ever again wish
To see my child
In doing so
I will again owe to them
Another piece of my life
As is the mind
Of a Roman
Oriented.