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WHEN CAESARS FALL
"You are the bread and the knife." - Billy Collins & Jacques Crickillon
You are my happy dagger,
My Holy Grail,
Life's blood,
And last words.
You are the dance of every dawn,
And the red moon rising on the edge of the sea.
You are the scent of baking bread,
And the sound of free birds.
However,
You are not chewing gum,
Stuck under some counter,
Or a bad hair day.
And you are certainly not laminated.
You are just too tough to laminate.
It is possible that you are a delicious
Lupercal dish in the fridge,
Maybe even a smidge underfed,
But you are not even close
To being a sea monster.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
That you are neither Little Jack Horner,
Bo-Peep's Pan,
Nor a goat mouse.
It might interest you to know
That the creaking of the floor boards
On the stage after-hours
Is just me
Searching for something Godot.
I also happen to be a monkey bar,
And a mayonaise jar
Full of fireflies,
And an aspirin
In a vase
Of wild white flowers.
I am sometimes the eve of the Ides of March,
And Yo Yo Ma's saddest string.
You are not rust
Or the cheap whine of worry,
Or the dried blood of Mother Earth
That rides the aching devil winds
When Caesars fall.
~Dame J E Marshall
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