Vox Populi
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Edison Jennings: The Cats of Rome
(George W. Bush/Silvio Berlusconi, Second Gulf War Summit, Rome, June 4, 2004)
The cats of Rome sleep, feed, and breed
among the tumbled travertine, and slip,
tails high, across the flag draped avenues.
Ignoring pomp, alert to circumstance,
they cruise cafes for crumbs or prowl
the Pantheon.
Because the ages blaze
and fade, the cats ignore the ranks
of flags and fleets of long black cars.
At the axis of the empire, they curl
round Trajan’s column, indifferent
to a fault, at home in a falling world.
.
For Felicia Mitchell
Copyright 2021 Edison Jennings. First published in Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival Chapbook, 2015. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.
Edison Jennings lives in the southwestern corner of Virginia and works as a Head Start bus driver. He served thirteen years active duty in the U.S. Navy. After separation from the Navy, he completed his education and began teaching and writing. His poetry collections include Intentional Fallacies (Broadstone, 2021).
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Thank you.
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Just LOVE this line, “Ignoring pomp, alert to circumstance,”
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Yes, I love Edison’s understated rhetorical turns.
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