by Jack D. Harvey (June 2026)
7
–
Zama
=
Hannibal at Zama;
among the cannibals
an eye as fierce as any.
A quick revenge
proved slow as sand
in an hourglass;
the swamps, the lake,
like dreams
on the long marches
back and forth
across the Roman boot.
Elephants wonder
how many there were to
defeat, again and again;
so many legions,
beast against beast.
=
Then a pause.
=
Loss follows loss,
an old general
makes his last stand;
unfortunate palaver
at the end;
then slaughter
complete as a harvest.
=
Down the drain
goes Carthage,
gone for good,
and history can’t tell
us what was
left among the ruins,
and what was not left.
We see Cato’s fields of salt,
the old Greek
tells us a thing or two,
sharpening his point,
and then
blue skies
under which
Hannibal
paints with red paint.
=
The bodies glisten
at Zama
the bodies glisten;
and then zebras
and then the brimming sand.
=
=
=
Michael the Paphlagonian
=
Michael’s fingers
were big as his arms,
riding in from
a good war;
sick as a dog,
he won acclaim.
=
A long disease does more
to our souls
than our bodies;
the fretful blood
and flesh accept.
=
God called,
Michael answered
at the last;
the crown of gold
exchanged for
the white robes
of the anointed,
the helmet of salvation.
=
At the sacred font,
omphalos of
God’s mother,
Michael stands;
dipped in the
watery hole
Michael emerges,
waiting on death
like a good servant.
The mystic waters
close again,
unbroken
as Christ’s belly.
=
Take, O take
these bleeding guts
away, whispers Michael
to his servants.
Tottering off,
he remembers Zoe
betrayed in her palace,
a moment’s pleasure repaid.
=
He has gone to
his reward,
they say,
looking skyward.
In a golden halo
he smiles from
his beautiful picture;
art for life.
=
Psellus told too much
and not enough about
those troubled times;
=
again and again
never to touch
the groping fingers
find the reins.
=
=
=
On the March
=
It’s a long high fly,
going, going,
the slow army,
elephants and all,
from the Alps descending,
going deep towards the belly button,
the breadbasket of Rome.
=
Along the Trebia flats,
the shores of the Trasimene,
Roman soldiers fell in droves,
legion by legion,
covering the ground
like the glittering leaves of autumn
or driven to drowning in the lake;
the silent uncaring water
swallowed them whole.
=
Fabius Cunctator, old and wily,
waiting in the wings,
patient for the reckoning;
but not his turn,
not his time;
=
Hannibal marches on.
=
–
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Table of Contents
Jack D. Harvey poetry has appeared in Scrivener, The Comstock Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Typishly Literary Magazine, New English Review, The Antioch Review and elsewhere. The author has been a Pushcart nominee and over the years has been published in a few anthologies. He lives in a small town near Albany, New York and has been writing poetry since he was sixteen.
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