OVID IN EXILE
in the Senate
on the Forum
they are not talking about it
no one is talking about it
Ovid
is in exile
the young Emperor
Augustus, formerly Octavian,
friend to the poets, patron of the arts
has blotted his copybook,
sent Ovid
into exile
no headlines, not a
scrap of graffiti
to record this event
too much truly momentous
on the horizon
to let this
sublime moral moment
undercut, let alone
overshadow
the great transformation
civil war over
the Caesar legacy entrenched
for who knows how long,
even the most conservative guess
will kick off with
a century or two, a good
few centuries
an Empire has been born
and Ovid missed its birth
for Ovid
is out of town
and, to be honest, who
really cares,
gives a damn about the impact
of this on his poetry
lately become
what was promised, always
promised
as the statues go up
to enshrine the new image
Ovid is in exile
and Rome and its fictions
transformed as expected
continue to be
poems 2 die for 