All
Saints - November 2011
causa latet vis est
notissima - Ovid
the cause is hidden, but its force is very well known
My Dear GPS
You’ve asked
me to confirm; thus I assure
the tremors
you experience underground
are not the
elephants of Hannibal, nor is
Vesuvius the
cause. The cacophony awakening
Hades, I’m
afraid, and Charon’s frequent trips
across the Styx have quite a different source.
The old girl’s
quiescent these past sixty-seven
years. Nonetheless,
bombs and fire flashes rain
from up above with
pulverizing might, such that
Lower Sirtis mirrors
the Pompeii we last saw.
Myriad Homeric
and Virgilian versions abound,
but, My Honourable
Uncle, since you ask:
Alas! Priam
and Hector again were cornered.
the rebels and
the rabble both claim triumph;
but all that’s
certain (perhaps not in disorder)
is that both were
dragged through the streets;
then slain; then
photographed for posterity with
V-signs. There
were long lines while all rejoiced.
I saw the
golden gun;
I heard the
berried W-A-A-W;
viewer caution
was advised, but old voyeur of our
munera, I
watched it all on HD and in 3-D, I might add,
(complicit, some
opine, oblivious of our tradition)
from a
distance like in that old Gold-Midler song.
But that’s old
news in the coliseum -
just like
these that I’ll be brief about:
Carthage and Alexandria
still under siege;
sorry for so
long a letter, but an earthquake
also shook a pilate’s
podium while he washed
his hands; in
Otta-war as the broadcasters say,
a bunch of
crazy people last month chanted
“Arrest George
Bush”; serpentine floods
challenge the
promise given Noah, wash away
Thailand and
Guatemala; even in Paradise,
all man and
woman under heavy manners –
curfew in
their tail for more than six months.
Yet take
comfort; the legacy of Caesar, perhaps
a little
rattled, nonetheless, remains intact.
This letter
pales compared with multifarious
more
illustrious troubadour accounts;
but rest
assured, you can depend on me,
My Venerable
Uncle, there’s more to come
Farewell
P
© Cynthia James, November, 2011
About Cynthia James
Cynthia James is
a Trinidadian, living for the past 3 years in Toronto. She writes poetry and
fiction and her work can be found in publications such as Callaloo, Caribbean
Writer and The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse
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