- Non-Erotic Poetry
- Spiced Lamb with Unleavened Bread
Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.
You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.
Click here
I walk down the hill, careful now of mud and that awful wrench
From old knees and uneven ground. I place each foot with care.
Each easy foot swing a battle won, each stab of pain a battle lost.
The setting sun shone from behind, casting my shadow across the ground.
My mind goes back to the windswept top.
The ancient twisted olive tree, bare of fruit and grey of leaf
And at the brow three stakes, each with huddled women at its feet.
Two less thieves to steal my stock and the one I came to see.
We come from Lydia, I a trader now here in Palestine.
The servants had spoken to my wife and then she to me.
They are afraid to talk to me. I am not sure why.
So words came third hand, or fourth or fifth from the Nazarene.
In my work, I have learnt when in a stranger's land
To avoid his women and his gods. But something struck
That did not fit, yet would not quite go from me.
And so I walked out on this last chance to see a Nazarene.
It had rained, I mean rained in Palestine, my feet were badly shod.
Not far or high, yet tiring at my age. I walked slow
And pressed my hands against each knee. I was not eager
For what I would find. I value Roman peace
But not their love of death. My son pesters me
To see the Games yet I feel unease. I do not like
Even the sacrifice of lamb and dove,
Yet know the gods too must feed.
My son now is of Rome. Gauls, Jews and Lydians
Soon all are gone and only Rome prevails.
When I reached the top I saw just the three.
Often ten, twenty. Once, when I was young,
I walked along their great road and all day,
At thirty paces a new tree. This time only three.
There were Roman guards, from Smyrna I would guess.
Bored and sullen as soldiers always seem.
Just a few to show their contempt but on the next hill
I saw a Roman camp. Another man stood back
And watched me closely then looked away.
His masters had no interest in foreigners.
This a local squabble for a local god.
And so I looked and saw a man, a man in pain.
No Greek hero or demigod, just a man
With a Jewish face. I saw a mole on his chest
And another on his cheek. I saw the dirt, the sweat.
I saw the shuddered rhythm of his breath. I listened
As he spoke softly with the thieves. I took trouble
Not to catch his eye. We owe respect to those
Who, though yet breathing, have now died.
Just a man and that same pain I have seen
On every Roman tree.
The news had come. Travelled fast.
The story told said it was the priests,
Their fear lest ten thousand Jews should rise
And lest fifty thousand would then die.
The priests had the harder choice,
Better a single man should die.
So I took this one last chance
To see the Nazarene
There was a chill wind, I did not stay.
He would not have known my being there.
My bones ached and my feet were sore.
I turned and picked my path
Down the stony way.
As the pathway eased, I relaxed my step.
My mind now turns to home and what awaits me there
My Lydian wife and my Roman son. My accounts,
Excuses for a task undone. And supper,
Spiced lamb with unleavened bread.
- COMMENTS
pelegrinoabout 10 years agoCleardaynow,
Let me say again that this kind of discussion would be better to be in a thread cause it may be of interest to others.
Anyhow, I did not mean historical inaccuracies but as I said a bit of overstretching. Ancient Lydia and Ionia and the city of Smyrna were there then as they are today as geographical entities.
Regarding your poem, I am faced with two ways of reading it and I use them both:
1. As a poem expressing your feelings and your point of you.
2. As a piece of historical writing.
I like it very much as a poem.
As history (although, I like the painting), politics do come in.
I can only view it as a piece written from a Christian author's or Christian sympathizer's perspective, but here you have to consider your reader's perspective.
My perspective as a reader is that of a Roman (up to the point when Romans themselves become Christians, c. 300 AD) and then that of a non-Christian, which still makes me an old non-Christian Roman.
Now, as a citizen of the empire, I can only regard this event (if it did ever happened), as a routine state execution, like you do.
On this point I do not sympathize with the executed so much, and I cannot accept your remark that my empire is brutal or inhuman. It is in fact the less brutal and most human state that is available at that time. The politicians have the very heavy task to keep peace and harmony for all its diverse subjects (and they did keep it and made a brilliant work of it). This is an example of what I meant by "over-stretching" of history. It is a point where perhaps our political views differ.
But we don’t have to be all Christians in order to appreciate a good poem like yours.
My views on Christianity and why I am against it, if you are interested, are clearly outlined in the end of my poem "The Flavii And Their Era".
(I definitely think that we need a new thread for this.)
Cleardaynowabout 10 years agoAuthorThank you very much for your comments – and score. Both greatly appreciated.
I am greatly curious as to where I was historically inaccurate. I just wrote it without further research. I was relieved just now to check on Wikipedia that the names Lydia and Smyrna were appropriate for Roman times. I certainly tried to make what the protagonist might have thought or heard realistic.
I wanted particularly to bring out that crucifixion was not some special one off event but absolutely commonplace. It was typical Roman efficiency and brutality – the maximum public pain and humiliation for the minimum effort. Draco without the regrets. I understand that they did on at least one occasion crucify thousands along roads but do not know if they were every 30 yards or if that was in the years preceding Jesus.
The poem was in many ways an experiment. I wanted to apply what I had learnt from some of the best poems on the site in applying descriptive detail – particularly from Oldbear (and thank you Oldbear for your comments as well). In particular I had read Destiny by Remec. I thought it and the devices used were excellent. However, the Web of the Norns is not now an integral part of our culture and thinking. Therefore the impact was purely intellectual & it needed something additional to give it depth and bite. I thought of commenting this & suggesting the crucifixion would be more powerful – but decided to write about it myself instead. The poem itself sort of took over then.
pelegrinoabout 10 years agoI don’t sympathize with the pro-Nazarene feelings expressed. My heart is more with those "two less" thieves that steal your stock. I also think that you over-stretch
Some historical facts.
On the other hand, your turn of phrase is beautiful and your painting of an era is very good to excellent.
Thanks for sharing it.
5-ed
Oldbear63about 10 years agoto me is the finest kind of story telling, richly textured with multiple layers each being exactly what and where it needs to be. The old man comes alive through his thoughts as he makes his trip, in a very few lines we see the politics of his home, his family, his area and the empire described in a way that is remarkably real.
"In my work, I have learnt when in a stranger's land
To avoid his women and his gods."
" I value Roman peace
But not their love of death"
"My son now is of Rome. Gauls, Jews and Lydians
Soon all are gone and only Rome prevails."
"I saw the shuddered rhythm of his breath. I listened
As he spoke softly with the thieves. I took trouble
Not to catch his eye. We owe respect to those
Who, though yet breathing, have now died."
This isn't clever word play or artful shading or dramatic pontification about the man on the cross - this is bold, declarative and beautiful story telling in the form of a poem
