Two Poems by Jack D. Harvey

                                                                                                

Vlad, the Impaler

John Crow,

royal by-blow,
Voyevod of Transylvania,

take this ham,

and eat it;

a pig died for you,

strung screaming on a wire.

Hung on a standard,

black and hairy,

Valeria Victrix

bores into Britain.

Sladnik,

take this golden hand

and shake it;

Mehmet's dark warriors

wait for Byzantium

to tumble

at the little gate.

Bang, bang, Urban's cannons

break the walls,

the lavish halls, the streets;

defeat is here,

the retreat of Constantine

from the west,

penniless, is here;

here he is, dead on his feet;

here he is, facing the foe;

he dies here.

Emperor of the east and beggar;

bargaining with a bad pope

a good king

does what he can.

The rosy shoes,

beloved Pharonic ikon,

fall broken

beneath Peter's ravening cross;

after ripe autumn, the

storms of booted winter.

King Constantine

on his feats,

by default rests;

lost in the east,

he struck wonders

out of his head,

calling argosies to the

last of Byzantium.

Dim, fine, old,

the skin of

his golden likeness

through the dead and

bygone winters

burns our minds still,

like bitter frost.

Black Tuesday, the burning city,

exquisite reliquary,

evolved centaur horrors;

ghosts aghast at helosis

floating from the tombs,

the ruined churches,

saw black Vlad, coffin-clad,

metamorphosed

between dog and wolf;

Vlad, Count Dracula,

a likely bat,

likable as the plague.

After centuries,

now and then,

a church bell or

something like it,

rings in the dawn;

a mystic freshening

calls up the day.

Night abides while

the sun sees all,

widening and widening

his eye.

For the sake of Christ

take my hand,

prince, sever your ties;

this kind land's not forever.

Zama

Hannibal at Zama;

among the cannibals

an eye as fierce as any.

A quick revenge

proved slow as sand

in an hourglass;

the swamps, the lake,

like dreams

on the long marches

back and forth

across the Roman boot.

Elephants wonder

how many there were to

defeat, again and again;

so many legions,

beast against beast.

Then a pause.

Loss follows loss,

an old general

makes his last stand;

unfortunate palaver

at the end;

then slaughter

complete as a harvest.

Down the drain

goes Carthage,

gone for good,

and history can't tell

us what was

left among the ruins,

and what was not left.

We see Cato's fields of salt,

the old Greek

tells us a thing or two,

sharpening his point,

and then

blue skies

under which

Hannibal

paints with red paint.

The bodies glisten

at Zama

the bodies glisten;

and then zebras

and then the brimming sand.

Jack D. Harvey is retired and lives in a small town near Albany, NY. Old enough to have been properly educated in the classics, he has been writing poetry most of his life. He hopes there is still some audience for poetry although he is aware that poets serve at a ruinous shrine and that the public ear is not and may have never been at their disposal