03/10/2020 – Poem a Day Compilation
Prasutagus, my love, my only,
My husband dear and always beloved,
With whom I bore two daughters true
Of such strong will and character,
Passed without due recognition
For the loyalty that he bestowed
Upon the great Roman emperor
And it’s vast and mighty empire
That encompassed land so far
From its own home and hearth
That rulers rose and fell without word
And were barely noted in the histories
Of our own glorious people,
Let alone those of that terrible realm
Who send their soldiers to abuse this land,
Its occupants given no sovereignty,
And living in awe of what may come
Over some horizon at any moment.
My husbands will, his spirit, his desire
For his kingdom to go to those two
Who bore his resemblance so well
And carried his name with pride,
Was usurped by unfeeling goons,
Annexed by those not of this land
And his property thieved before our eyes.
This was not the worst of his humiliation,
Thankfully inflicted after his death
So that he would not bear witness
To such a brutal beating of his wife,
My skin torn by lashings harsh and cruel
Simply for daring to be wife and mother,
For being only of the female persuasion.
My horror was at once compounded
By the screams and cries of those two
To whom I promised fair protection
And all a mother’s love and care,
Yet there I lay,
Unable to move for pain and grief,
Tortured as they were tortured;
Their childhood ripped from them
As soldiers ripped their clothes
From bodies yet undeveloped,
To carry out that horrid deed
Made from the corruption of their power
And the absence of affection,
That plucks that which should be left to grow
Without permission or any care.
This physical pain was but temporary –
A slave’s scars born by the wife of a king
Would live long after the wounds healed
And remind me of that horrific ordeal
For which the might of Rome would pay
With the blood and lives of their own sons
And the sons of their sons
Until my vengeance was duly sated
And my daughters bore the crown
They so rightly did deserve,
Earned by the theft of their modesty,
That which was theirs only to give
But was taken by force by those dogs
Who had not yet learned to heel
Before the Queen of the Iceni.
Though the tribes that surrounded me
Harboured me no good will
The enemy of mine enemy stood true
And their hatred for those from Rome
Outweighed the many petty disputes
Over trade and resources and soft borders,
And we Britons came together
To defeat a common, hated foe,
Though there was little choice for them
As my reputation preceded me
And I laid siege to Camulodunum
Burning their city to the ground.
The temple to that emperor, Claudius,
Of whom the Romans thought so high
They deified and worshipped him,
Was no match for my warrior band;
Its façade crumbling before those men,
A mere two hundred unarmed men,
Who were sent to protect that which I ruined
By leaders so far removed from battle
As to underestimate my conviction
And send so few as to be in humour
But I spared none in my endeavours –
Those loyal to Rome were soon dispatched
By sword and spear and the fires of hell
While those brave Britons joined my ranks
As we marched on to Londinium
On the Island of Mona, far away,
Roman governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus
Made easy work of those feared druids
Where he murdered all he came across
And pillaged villages with reckless abandon,
Yet when he heard of my exploits
He though me no match for his wiles
And travelled towards that same town
As I was accordingly headed
With a force that would be no contest
For the army that amassed behind me.
With each passing town I gained still more
For it was barely a choice to fight with me
Or be trampled under the weight I bore
Down upon any resistance to my will,
That Suetonius turned tail and ran
Before the complete destruction
Of that settlement of Londinium
At the hands of what was a rabble
Turned torturous, bloodthirsty militia men
Under my stern and watchful eye.
Onwards to Verulamium we marched,
Swelling in numbers through fear and favour
A combined tribe of some many thousand
Outnumbering any opposition met
And absorbing those rebels who wished to join
Our noble cause of justified vengeance
Against those who would oppress our people
And spill the blood of the innocent
And I would make a firm example
Of those who stood against my command
And all who ever heard my name
Would know the destruction that surely followed
Was nothing compared with that which befell
That legion ninth of the Roman Empire –
Their fate sealed by their misplaced loyalty
To a long distant crown who abandoned them
To fight my own massed soldiers then
In ambush all but a handful lay deceased
Running off to masters unprepared
For my now all-consuming passion.
Three cities I had laid to waste,
Burned to the ground by fires fierce,
Their protections decimated in my wake.
This caused much consternation over seas.
In Rome, Nero weighed up options few –
To fight my vast army undermanned
Or withdraw to the last the soldiers of Rome –
But that thorn in my side, Suetonius, returned
To thwart my plan to rid these isles
Of those invaders and traitors all
Who sided with a foreign enemy,
And I was draw into a battle once more,
Yet my troops of far superior strength
Showed signs of that one defeating trait:
Hubris, that over bearing pride,
That allowed them to bring their kith and kin
To observe them engaged in battle from the rear
Preventing retreat from certain death
When caught by treacherous tactics of war
Where, squeezed into a valley fine and
Flanked by the enemy on higher ground,
We were exposed by that coward of Londinium
And he claimed his undeserving victory
But without that scalp he prized so dear
As I lived on to tell my tale.
But what am I without a fight,
Without an enemy at the gates?
My vengeance never wholly gorged,
For Romans still inhabit my land
And demand my taxes for leaders afar,
A tribute I will never pay
So long as I draw breath in to my lungs.
I would rather die by my own hand
Than give over my pound of flesh
To men who will not stand face to face
With that woman they so feared,
That nearly brought them to their knees,
And whose legend will live on forever more
In mistold tales of feminine heroism
When all that drove me in my ambition
Was a wife’s grief and a mother’s anger.
No comments:
Post a Comment