Prose Poem: We Are Romans - Sean Ali

We Are Romans

          We are Romans. The trilling violin makes us giddy while our city burns to the ground. The sword dangles above our head, and we are titillated. We play death-games as a form of reprieve from war. And for every million that is smothered by the burden of history, one manages to escape with poetic grace. We throw Christians to the lions to fulfill their legacy of martyrdom and our legacy of brutality. We are Romans. We revel in orgies by night; Roman law judges us by day.
          Leather is wrapped tightly around flesh in order to initiate the not-yet-tainted into the agony of carnal relish. We are the nightmare of history that has scattered its broken symbols all throughout the realm of the present. We are Romans, Egyptian gold will make our blood boil hot enough to burn libraries. Our decadence grows with our nihilism until we are nothing but empty hunger. In our coliseums, we hang the bodies of freshly murdered foreigners in order to fragrance our city with the perfume of death. For Roman wisdom knows that glory is a destination which can only be arrived at by following the path of violence.
          We are Romans, and everywhere we go, the masses throng together and shout a clamorous death-roar.