Julius Nimbus

[TDF]

Shotgun clouds, cut through
by Jupiter's crooked threads,
hail a Brutus welcome
as vacuum veins collapse
and crack the hungry echoes
of their own destruction.

This thunderous empire,
the might of roam and conquer, razed
by streaks of silver.



(edited: change of title and god)

[wabbit]

Nice one Tom

This is good ... in my humble opinion

Like the play on words

"the might of roam and conquer" thats good ....

To good for me to contemplate critisising, anyway if it aint bust dont fix it

[twoleftfeet]

Tom,

A thought - "Julius" = Roman, "Zeus" = Greek ?

[TDF]

That's a good point Geoff, slip of my classical knowledge.
I guess it should be Jupiter, not Zeus. I shall change it accordingly.

[barrie]

Geoff beat me to it - That's my only criticism here - mixing your gods and races. Zeus Pater (Father Zeus) is Greek, Iupater or Jupiter is the Latin equivalent. Both come from the Hindu, Dyaus-Pitar, father of Indra.
I like the poem though - Zeus' (Jupiter's) crooked threads is nice - as is the whole idea.

Good stuff.

Barrie

[Richard WH]

Excellent stuff.
Shows how just a few words can suggest so much.
Terrific images and use of words

[TDF]

Thanks chaps,
Glad this seems to work ok and is recieved well. It started off just being about a thunderstorm then somehow morphed to include a Caesar et tu brute double meaning. Wasn't sure if the new angle slotted well with the original piece, but seems it worked out ok. The only thing I didn't manage to get in there was some ides reference to double reflect the march rain/pain.

Thankee all.
Tom

[Elphin]

tom

I wasn't planning on commenting - agree with the others its a good piece of work - but you might want to consider whether the language of shotguns and vacuums (less so) is consistent with the ancient theme. I'll leave you to ponder.

elphin

[TDF]

You make a fair point Elph.
Those 2 words are clear remnance of the original tack of the poem, that when describing just a storm worked well I think. In the context of the second meaning? maybe now I'm not so sure. One thing though: The vacuum is a description of how lightning works to create thunder, so in itself is essentially timeless, and probably pretty a latinate word I would imagine. I will re-consider shotgun though.

Thanks for the thoughts.
Tom

[Milu]

Shotgun clouds, cut through [perhaps I'm missing something, but I think shotgun is a bit out of place with the era, unless you're trying to convey something with that image that I'm not getting. I know very little of Roman warfare, but perhaps spears or swords or something? ]

by Jupiter's crooked threads,
hail a Brutus welcome [a Brutus welcome? Hmm...making it "a brutus welcome" makes it sound like some offical common place thing. Maybe it's nitpicking, but it came off a bit odd. I thought it would be better "Hail another Brutus a welcome, or something along those lines]
as vacuum veins collapse
and crack the hungry echoes
of their own destruction.

This thunderous empire,
the might of roam and conquer, razed
by streaks of silver.



(edited: change of title and god)

Et tu, Brute? Hehe.

I really like the imagery of the poem. What I got from it is you were saying that the destruction of Rome was due to the over abundance of power represented by the thunder. I thought it was cleaver. Thanks for sharing ^__^

[TDF]

cheers Milu,

Yeah, shotgun has been raised already as a clash of eras/styles. The original poem was just about a thunderstorm, then evolved to be a metephor for the fall of Rome/Julius Caesars murder. We get shotgun thunder, so I melded that with the description of the cloud itself.
But also, the power of Rome was meant to be reflected in the storm also: a storm is something that seems awsomely huge, yet something that essentially destroys itself due to its size.
Brutus was a point towards the shakespearian assasination of Julius as well as being a play on words with brutal. Also I wanted to somehow reflect the fact that storm sometimes seem to come from nowhere - as did Brutus's blade for Julius. They seem great things to see, yet hold the power to destroy.

Most of what I intended seems to have been picked up, but I think maybe I tried to squeeze in too much wordplay and mixed ideas.

Tom