POMPEY MAGNUS

by George Held

Dressed in his black undertaker’s suit,
The Secretary of State, first in his class
at West Point, visits the Western Wall
with ally Netanyahu, then blithely tells
the press that as a Christian, first in his class,
he believes God might well have ordained
that President Trump be the angel
of Israel’s deliverance, a modern Esther
on this Purim 2019.

Pompey Magnus, Pompeo’s antecedent,
Had three Triumphs in his day; now here’s
Another one, at the Western Wall at the expense
of the wall between Church and State, descended
from Roger Williams and T. Jefferson,
whose descendant T***p desires above all
a wall along the Mexican border, the modern
version of Sicily, which Pompey the Great
conquered in the name of the Republic.

Will our Pompeo the Great, first in his class,
bring down, like Joshua at Jericho, the wall
between State and Church? Who is this god
for whom Pompeo speaks with such confidence?
Who is this Caesar T***p, who like Emperor
Sulla, sends his consul abroad to make
policy without consent of the Senate? And
will he avoid, like Pompey, the scathing
nickname, earned for causing carnage, “carnifex”*?

* “the butcher"

George Held, a frequent contributor to TheNewVerse.News and other periodicals, has a new poetry book, Second Sense, forthcoming from Poets Wear Prada.