Here I am
waiting for the whiskey
to stop being coy
and finally kick in.
Rome is burning outside
but the flames haven't
crept near yet.
Front row seats
to the end of an era
that I'll soon have to pay for.
I can already smell the smoke
and see the angry glow
against the weeping sky.
But I have some time yet
before the air gets hot
and the streets become
screaming rivers of humanity.
Bearing witness now
to the weeping heart
and fate's feckless whim.
Outside, Rome is burning
as the tide of time reaches
out to find the high water mark.
All for a dream
a half formed and
half thought impulse,
the urge to conquer
not a woman or a nation
but the whispers of the psyche.
Soon now the fat lady
will sing her rusted heart out
and I'll see the last great age
fall to the caprices of a power
that I will never comprehend.
Rome is on fire
and in that destruction
might something else
be born?
The histories of nations
the folly of man
the lives of the great
replayed again within
the lives of those
whom I love.
The center is indeed crumbling
and we of the flesh,
we cannot hold.