Crassus and his Golden Tongue

Crassus in his night tent

dressed for war

fearful too as the sky dissolves

and lightning strikes a curse

  on the hour.

His army stands before the worn

city gate - taut and unbreakable

like newly minted coin.

Only victory is meaningful he says,

victory and the flower of redemption

for an idea greater than itself.

And Crassus can taste victory -

it is substantial like gold in his mouth;

it entices like the fear that spreads through all men

in the end hour of night.

To hold fear, to stroke it - the idea excites!

To clasp fear tight in your hand

would grant a return greater

than all the gold smote in a Parthian war.

The moon clouds part - silent, seductive –

reveal a city of ripe burnished silver

for Crassus to burn.

His well-groomed stallion, his puncheons

and cleats, he mounts and it is now

that he recalls a moment in pre-life

when he tasted gold: gold pressed

against his mother's blossoming womb,

flakes of it ingested by her for good luck

as Crassus floated in his own

unconscious sea of fear.

His battalions flex, prepare

to unleash their own brutal beauty,

swords of chalcidian steel

warmed by the rising night's moon,

plumes caressed by soft Eastern wind.

Crassus raises a glittering arm,

tastes gold leaf on his tongue.