by Tony Beyer
Up front
as a civilisation test
we ask prospective employees
to define irony
several of them come up with the names
of incongruous politicians
or miscast movie stars
the ones we do hire
nearly always refer to themselves
and their effrontery
sitting there
in the sweat soaked chair
wanting to be like us
Many battles
Livy Bks XXIX-XXX
it was decided
after much debate in the Senate
Scipio should go to Africa
and there earn
not only for his own glory
his cognomen
after fifteen years of war
the mercenaries
fighting for a foreign state
were no match
for the Roman
butchering machine
that drove forward
shield beside shield
stabbing and stamping
Scipio inherited this
from his dead father and uncle
and applied it with dispassion
along with proficient
dispositions
of cavalry
so many gutted
and left to rot
so many sold into slavery
the only option was to win
for both sides
but both couldn’t
more than two thousand years on
you have to feel sorry
for the elephants
The village
after the massacre
bicycles the dead no longer need
rust where they were left
leaning against the drystone wall
a vintage motor vehicle
converted to run on wartime fuel
sinks past the depth of its wheel rims
into the ground
the empty houses
belong to no one now
but would if they could
echo voices rather than gunfire
in the bare fields
starlings and crows wear funeral colours
in accord with what hasn’t
finished happening here
Add comment