Rome Is Burning

 

 

Rome is ablaze

But this Rome is Barbados,

Much has been promised

But the times are troublous.

 

You in your bubble

Thumbs a-twiddling,

Oblivious to the goings on

While walls are falling.

 

Morality is sinking fast

And anything goes,

A paradigm shift, you insist,

Life in death throes.

 

Conservatism was awful

Liberalism is the thing,

And anything is excusable

To ensure your fling.

 

A fling brief and fleeting

But what the heck!

You do whatever suits you

To enjoy the trek.

 

 

For what is life really

Unless lived on the edge?

Why allow some unseen being

Restrict you by a hedge?

 

Ear drink, and be merry

For tomorrow you die

And your longest memory

Will be a momentary sigh.

 

Rome is burning

And with it so are you,

And seemingly there is nothing

That anyone can do.

 

Much has been promised

But little is being done,

And rather than going forward

Full circle we have come.

 

It is a pseudo progress

Meaning no progress at all,

Same old, same old is evident,

That’s certainly my call.

 

 

Good is being outlawed

In myriad ways

And evil fills the imagination

Just like in Noah’s days.

 

Brazen is the approach

And it’s right in your face,

No shame, no embarrassment,

No cognizance of disgrace.

 

The world’s ways are enticing,

Its sanctions an allure:

On one hand its approval,

On the other a forced control.

 

A strange word is sanction-

An opposite of sorts,

It’s a favour to the compliant

But if they are not, abort!

 

God is too conservative

And all them that follow Him,

Better still a pantheon of gods

That embraces every sin.

 

 

I tell you, Rome is ablaze

But this Rome is Barbados,

Its leadership is confounded,

We are in death throes.

 

And our children?

What can be done for them?

Only God knows at the moment,

He can solve the problem.

 

Stewart Russell © February 10, 2023