I dreamed of a clipper ship
Gold on blue THE CHASEY ALICE
Until he’d seen which Captain You said

        The havoc-caused
        soul occurs not
        recovers yet the

If the answer were awe, I would be burdened with awe

I needed a long bus ride up-
town like a new hole oh well

I’ve meant to tell you many things about my life,
& every time the moment has conquered me.

We all sensed we were in it, but didn’t know 
who would fund this long a study, what the premise
behind it could be.  

Here is the world, right beside me,
a little garden with a swing,
some dirt and a red shovel,

after Suetonius

Caligula ordered the night city illuminated.
Every stoop, porch, or balcony was a stage.

He made the senators dress as prostitutes—
tight silk skirts, paste-on eyelashes.
Up to a matron to wriggle into a boy’s shorts.

Marcus Severus, one-armed veteran
of our labyrinthine border wars,
had to hobble into the amphitheater
armed with a plume and attack a lion.

A plume! We were fascinated.
We were all players, who was the audience?

When I finally took power in the Nomenclature, simply by outlasting my rivals, never arriving early or too late at the meetings, repertoire of sage nods, my mind had distanced itself from the world. I no longer knew to whom I was talking, or the topic, though I was certain of myself. Hunger and desire lasted, savage as in boyhood. It was the names that flew away, leaving a maze of empty nests.

I am a child acting Romeo.
I love Juliet desperately
but I cannot say it.