CAESAR’S LAST BREATH
by MICHAEL SALCMAN
Caesar’s Last Breath
—Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)
On the Ides of March, great Caesar stabbed to death
by friends, expelled his final breath
in exclamation, an accusation I’m forced to share
by Fermi’s calculation each time I respire in joy or despair
an atom of the cry my Mother gave in giving me birth
or later, my Father’s shout at exchanging the earth
beneath our feet, from blooded Old World to New.
What holds the star-winged atoms of our bones but the glue
of universal speech, the pneuma of life?
Each day exchanges the oxygen of kings with child and wife,
the lips of long gone fiends exclaim with those in doubt
or pray in unison with the most devout.
Less a calculus of breath than perverted fate
how often we exhale love and fill our lungs with hate.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- Ольга Берггольц – Память (Всей земною горечью и болью)
- Walk with Me by Tammy L Ames
- The Naming Of Cats by T. S. Eliot
- Жан де Лафонтен – Безумец и Мудрец
- Waiting by Rabindranath Tagore
- Михаил Ломоносов – Надпись на день рождения Ее Величества
- Sound O’ Water by William Barnes
- Eternity by William Blake
- Владимир Корнилов – Военный оркестр
- A Soldier’s Song by Stephenie Tucker
- Николай Огарев – Расстались мы
- Touch-And-Go by Sylvia Plath
- Владимир Гиляровский – Грядущее
- Aeolian Harp by William Allingham
- On a Tree Fallen Across the Road by Robert Frost
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
