Tag Archives: poetry

OVID IN EXILE

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
  

NEVERTHELESS

NEVERTHELESS

raid?
deconstruction?

we can argue about it:
fact remains
with raincoats and
torches

you forced your way
into my poem
in the middle
of the night

outside
     no mob with
pitchforks but
a pyre nevertheless

what is to be burned?
I ask; you
do not bother
to grace
  this question
with
an answer

of course, it is one
of the great questions
of all time

whose true answer
in this context,
this situation,
   makes not much
difference

no
difference at all