---146BCE Roman forces breached the walls of Carthage. All inhabitants
were sold into slavery. The city was burned to the ground and the land was sown
with salt.
Have you ever seen a desolate place?
Where people now try to hide their face?
I wonder if there were once children
There playing ball and running with pets,
Before some army rolled them all away?
I marvel how there can be worldwide
Rations of water, food, fuel, even family,
When there seems to never be a scarcity of
Bandits, butchers, overlords, scalawags-all
Poised to rule, casually casting a frozen die.
The great lies-deflection and misdirection,
Point to the lesser developed peoples and lands,
While failing to boast of local eradication of
Countless Native American tribes, not to
Mention buffalo herds the size of Delaware.
Dead languages can no justice demand-
It’s a feat worthy of stumping Columbo, what
The voyages of Columbus
helped fossilize.
Ships from afar raped treasures and delivered
Endless supplies of soldiers, salt, and kings.
Time remains the great unsullied equalizer.
Hunters with ghosts in their eyes conjure
Themselves great warriors, most deserving of
Their spoils rather than rank blank purveyors
Readying self-realized killing fields anew.
In the meantime gardens do brim with bounty,
Beloved dogs and cats live like royals unaware
The value of a sip of water or piece of stale bread.
Prideful to live in a land heralded by the French
Queen, greeting all-in her sharp tapered crown.
---Yeats wrote of “No Second Troy’ – yet what of Carthage?
