Tenuous and Precarious
Tenuous and Precarious
Were my guardians,
Precarious and Tenuous,
Two Romans.
My father was Hazardous,
Hazardous
Dear old man,
Three Romans.
There was my brother Spurious,
Spurious Posthumous,
Spurious was Spurious,
Was four Romans.
My husband was Perfidious,
He was Perfidious
Five Romans.
Surreptitious, our son,
Was Surreptitious,
He was six Romans.
Our cat Tedious
Still lives,
Count not Tedious
Yet.
My name is Finis,
Finis, Finis,
I am Finis,
Six, five, four, three, two,
One Roman,
Finis.
poem by Stevie Smith
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Romans Twelve
I read and re-read Romans twelve.
Until it casted a spell.
And I saw myself,
And others like me.
Instantly I realized...
I was not as free,
As I chose to be.
In these times I'm finding,
Romans twelve has helped me dispel
What I believe I had to do...
To protect a truth I myself abused!
And to release what I thought I knew too well.
This is what I discovered as I read Romans twelve.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Old World New World
Natives wearing turquoise and silver
Dirty dogs barking in the distance
People of a thousand tongues
Im learning the primitive rights
Im doing as the romans do
Mt. kalais to mt. everest
Then down to the river ganges
To follow your mighty past
Were learning the primitive rights
Were doing as the romans do
Old world
New world
I know nothing
But Ill keep listening
Cities tumble into the ocean
Cities getting built in the sky
Now were talking digital
Were learning the primitive rights
Were doing as the romans do
Millions playing at monopoly
Rolling the dice of their life
Im dancing and shaking hands
Were learning the primitive rights
Were doing as the romans do
I know nothing
Grow old look wise
Never knowing til I die
But Ill keep listening
Ill keep listening
Pan
Shambala
Judism
Hindu
Christianity
Masdic
Budism
Atman of vedies
Sun ra
Astrology
Voodoo
The great dream time
song performed by by INXS
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ave Caesar
No bitterness: our ancestors did it.
They were only ignorant and hopeful, they wanted freedom but wealth too.
Their children will learn to hope for a Caesar.
Or rather--for we are not aquiline Romans but soft mixed colonists--
Some kindly Sicilian tyrant who'll keep
Poverty and Carthage off until the Romans arrive,
We are easy to manage, a gregarious people,
Full of sentiment, clever at mechanics, and we love our luxuries.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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The Roman Cemetery
Abused have been the Romans
by certain scholars of more recent times
for not creating metaphysics
like other glorious nations,
but only aqueducts, roads, colosseums, forums,
the eternal city, castra, border, earthwork.
Abused have been the Romans
for building only houses, with atria
receiving daylight from above,
and with the warning on their doorsills: cave canem.
If fate would have you come to Rome some day
and deep into the countryside, my friend, along the Via Apia
you were to wander,
you would then understand, oh, how unjust the balance is
in which people and peoples weigh
each other’s hearts and virtues. For you would see a Way
unrolling on and on into the landscape,
stone after stone, all fitting,
a Way lined left and right
with urns, sarcophaguses, mausoleums
preserving ashes, relics sheltering.
Thus did the Romans see the Way, defying every limit,
into the mighty realm of life through death advancing,
laid out in rows
on either side. And those who in the shade of cypresses
in sarcophaguses are sleeping, hear the sound
of shields and lances, hear the cohorts marching,
the wheels of chariots, the horses’ neighing. In due course
all this no longer does exist
but the more ancient dead still listen to the Way
that sounds on earth.
Thus did the Romans visualize a cemetery:
a way lined with two rows of silences.
And that is Roman metaphysics: a Way.
A way advancing through the dead, not through the quick.
poem by Lucian Blaga, translated by Dan Duţescu
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Lincolnshire Bomber Station
Across the road the homesick Romans made
The ground-mist thickens to a milky shroud;
Through flat, damp fields call sheep, mourning their dead
In cracked and timeless voices, unutterably sad,
Suffering for all the world, in Lincolnshire.
And I wonder how the Romans liked it here;
Flat fields, no sun, the muddy misty dawn,
And always, above all, the mad rain dripping down,
Rusting sword and helmet, wetting the feet
And soaking to the bone, down to the very heart . . .
poem by Henry Treece
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Barabbas
Love it or hate it, that is my name.
I fought against the Romans and I lost.
They were ready to crucify me.
They were ready to end my life.
But my hatred lives forever.
Love it or hate it, I live another day.
The Rabbi Jesus died in my place.
Another day and it would be different.
My war does not change in any way.
Not while Israel walks in chains...
Love it or hate it, here I am before you.
Look at me with my blood still flowing...
Hear me as I speak to you, one to another.
See my hands moving freely here and there,
Yet nowhere near Calvary today.
Love it or hate it, Rome let me live.
Caesar plays his games with us all.
One false move now and I can still die.
But we all die, that is the lot of Man.
Jesus would have died sooner or later.
Some say Jesus has risen from the tomb.
Would that I had been there to see it.
I could have thanked the man myself.
I could have asked for a miracle.
Take this heartache from me...
Forgive the Romans? Let them be?
Let them crush Israel underfoot?
Let God work out His purposes?
Forgive me, friend... I do not comprehend.
You may forgive the Romans, Jesus...
But love it or hate it, for good or ill...
I am still Barabbas...
Denis Martindale, copyright, April 2011.
Based on the film Barabbas...
poem by Denis Martindale
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No One Here Is Roman
When in Rome,
Do what the Romans do!
'Yeah...
But no one here is Roman.
And I don't understand
One thing they are doing! '
That's okay neither do they!
Pretend you are a tourist.
Everyone else does!
And they have been pretentious,
Long before you noticed them.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Attila
He's ruled them for 20 years
And ravaged as their king
Conquest burns in his eyes
And ice shoots through his veins
Their leader's new ambition lies
Farther to the west
The empire that he seeks
The farther to the rest
Attila wants to take his place
Like the impetuous son
To make the entire world bow
To the kingdom of the huns
Alliance has been made
With many others clans
Frank and Vandal forces
Held within his hand
And by Attila's hand it's said
His brother met with death
To make his rule his legacy
He did his awful best
Ethele and Etzell
By many names he's known
But "scourge of god" is the one
That rings the darkest tone
Chorus
Hell awaits behind gaul's gates
The romans stand only to fall
They will die by his sword
The barbarian Lord
Attila hears victory call
Bridge
(Huns)
Path of fire and plunder
Cities burn and crumble
Attila's fate beckons
He will come to conquer
(Romans)
Archers stand at ready
Centurions all together
Keep to your lines
And the mongols sure to falter
(Huns)
We will surely break them
We will overtake them
Fight till our deaths
Or the Christians' devastation
(Romans)
They won't overthrow us
God Will stand before us
Show us the path to the huns destruction
Sing to the sky, the battle cry
To propagate their fear
As terror is the weapon drawn
When battle has drawn near
And so the conflict is at hand
The gauntlet has been thrown
Contempt for the Christian reign
This poison seed now sewn
And if by chance all is lost
Cut down by roman steel
We'll suffer not as others have
Broken mind nor broken will
Repeat chorus
song performed by by Iced Earth
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Horace, Seventh Epode
Whither, whither, reckless Romans,
Are you rushing, sword in hand?
Has not yet the blood of brothers,
Fully stained the sea and land?
Not that raging conflagration
Should o’er fallen Carthage play;
Not that the unconquered Briton
Should descend the sacred way.
"Rome," exclaims the joyful Parthian,
"Ruin for herself prepares;
Wolves with wolves are never savage,
Lion lion never tears."
Is this fury? is it madness?
Speedy answer I demand;
Foolish, blinded, guilty Romans,
Silent, stupefied you stand. [590]
Thus ’tis fated, blood of brothers
Must atone for brothers’ guilt,
Since the blood of injured Remus
Romulus in anger spilt.
poem by James Clerk Maxwell
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Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone.
quote by Pyrrhus of Epirus
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When my father arrived in Kenya, he had found the Kikuyu way of life similar to that of the British at the time the Romans invaded England 2,000 years ago.
quote by Louis Leakey
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Peace In The Midst Of The “Shakings” Of Life
God said, “Once again I will shake
not only the earth but the heavens also.” Hebrews 12: 26.
“This means that all of creation will be shaken
and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain.
Since we are receiving a Kingdom
that is unshakable, let us be thankful
and please God by worshiping him with holy
fear and awe”. (Beware prepare for meteor showers.) Hebrews 12: 27-28.
God uses shaking of tough circumstances
to reveal what is true eternal... His kingdom His glory.
Christians are to inherit part of God’s kingdom
an eternal city waits for you... your future is secure.
But where is our hope now you said?
What will we hold onto? Something stable!
“And I am convinced that nothing
can ever separate us from God's love.
Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither our fears for today nor our worries
about tomorrow... not even the powers
of hell can separate us from God's love”. Romans 8: 38.
You can count on the love of Jesus
to never fail you, never crumble,
even in the hardest times. He said,
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you”. Hebrews 13: 5.
“God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear,
though the earth give way
and the mountains fall
into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.” Psalm 46: 1-3
For it was not to angels
that God subjected
the inhabited earth to come,
about which we are speaking.” Hebrews 2: 5.
“The mind governed by the flesh
is hostile to God; it does not submit
to God’s law, nor can it do so.” Romans 8: 7.
The world follows not God’s laws.
Yet as for us “Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ” Romans 8: 35.
“We do not know what we ought to pray for
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us...
because the Spirit intercedes for God’s
people in accordance with the will of God.” Romans 8: 26-27.
“I consider that our present sufferings
are not worth comparing with the glory
that will be revealed in us. For the creation
waits in eager expectation for the children
of God to be revealed. For the creation
was subjected to frustration,
not by its own choice,
but by the will of the one
who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself will be liberated
from its bondage to decay and brought
into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” Romans 8: 18-21.
Copyright © Terence George Craddock
Written in response to the ‘Weekly Prayer Focus’ topic ‘When Everything’s Shaking, Find Something Stable’ from the ‘Weekly Global Media Outreach Prayer Letter’.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Terre, Terre,Cherie
...Terre, terre chérie
Que la liberté sainte appelle sa patrie;
Père du grand sénat, ô sénat de Romans,
Qui de la liberté jetas les fondements;
Romans, berceau des lois, vous, Grenoble et Valence,
Vienne; toutes enfin! monts sacrés d'où la France
Vit naître le soleil avec la liberté!
Un jour le voyageur par le Rhône emporté,
Arrêtant l'aviron dans la main de son guide,
En silence, debout sur sa barque rapide,
Fixant vers l'Orient un oeil religieux,
Contemplera longtemps ces sommets glorieux;
Car son vieux père, ému de transports magnanimes,
Lui dira: 'Vois, mon fils, vois ces augustes cimes.'
poem by Andre Marie de Chenier
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There hasn't been this much excitement since the Romans fed the Christians to the Lions.
quote by Sid Waddell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Adam And Eve
God created the first man, Adam,
out of the dust of the ground
He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
but for Adam there was no helpmate found
So God put Adam into a deep sleep
and made a woman out of a rib of the man
In The Garden of Eden everything was perfect
until they ate the fruit which God had banned
God told Adam and Eve they could eat
from every tree of the garden except one
Then came along the serpent and tempted Eve
and the first sin to enter the world was done
Ever since that day that sin entered the world
everyone has sinned and needs a savior
That is the reason God sent his son to die for us
and only through faith in Christ is salvation's door
Romans 5: 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
Romans 5: 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
John 10: 9 I am the door, by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.
www.cavaliersonly.com
poem by Cindy Wyatt
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I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.
quote by Thomas Jefferson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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