Back in the SPQR

Back in the SPQR


First I’d written full of good intentions –
I wrote a letter which began, “Dear Ovid..”
Tactless really , just by what it mentions;
His friends at least thought of him while we hid.

“Our network contacts keep us in the know,
a lifeline to our hero, and a link:
while the senate’s false seeds take and grow
anyone who denies them’s thrown in clink.

They rate me potentially subversive, a lout
who might cause trouble for the worthy scout
whose job it is to shadow me all day
guilty by association, and by that lay
you penned about my wallmanship
and later – gigglingly, I remember – wrote the quip,

‘Robutus, a man of bricks and mortal –
he is the secret portal to a wall.’

And now a group of soldiers make a din
around my pile; they’ll not let me in.
I head for the coast where breezes from the sea
will slow my pulse, and walking through the reeds
I’ll feel safe from prying scrutiny
and write to Ovid(!) – drop all other leads.
Of one thing you were right. By dream or guess,
in far away Mamaia you know about my mess.


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