I work in circles, crowned, battered from war
—and wash up face down on the Latium shore;
to stake my claim on this earth, rattle the core
as the auguries fly out and magically sore;
into an infinite empyrean and scatter their force
as the priestesses proceed to stab at the corpse—
where bliss is intertwined with torturous visions,
in an orb I have envisioned what Lady Fortune has scripted.
Forging the diction, drunk with the bards:
the Sons of Mars stay shunning the odds.
In the lap of an immense, professed philosophy
to make space fabric bend, so says the prophecy;
the late, great scatters men, a rogue rap anomaly;
show up to your set and protest the mockery.
We come from miles away to marvel at the Palace Gates;
cause I cannot describe the marble palisades.
Perplexing as to evil men's callous ways,
and for two plus millennium our towers stay.
In this lucrative game I'm like Jupiter's brain;
our empires fall but the ruins remain.
Wander through the groves where no roads meet;
cause I'm sauntering the soul's depth oh so deep.
Wear glory as robe, always loathed defeat;
because of Athena's cold shoulder that froze whole seas.

break

Manage this entropy—each stanza's potentially
—an amelioration if I channel the centuries;
handle it mentally, from the will it's assigned.
Compose trills of a kind that send chills up your spine.
A distillation of each phrase in a written statement;
speech spitting, deep digging, ripping through the pavement
listen with amazement, from the chasm we climb;
we let the disaster unwind then laugh at your lines.
I imagine the mind outside the fabric of time,
as the dagger that grinds on the back of your spine.