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
- Pied Beauty poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- To the City of London by William Dunbar
- Николай Языков – Песни (Душа героев и певцов)
- Владимир Британишский – Утром 10 мая 1945 года
- The Ballad Of The Foxhunter by William Butler Yeats
- Brookwell by William Barnes
- A Purse-String by William Strode
- The Irish Unionist’s farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922 poem – John Betjeman poems
- Валерий Брюсов – Ленин
- Владимир Корнилов – Надежда
- Олег Бундур – Чем пахнет мама
- My World Destroyed by Roberto Cocina
- A Library Of Skulls by Thomas Lux
- Ibant Obscur? by Thomas Edward Brown
- Василий Жуковский – Гомер
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).
