Caesar, Antony, & Brutus (Additions to "The Apology Box")

     Julius Caesar Joins His Cousins

Hail cousins in Olympus!*  Like you, I

Have intervened throughout the world.  I warred

Not just in Rome but in far regions, too,
As god in man no doubt is prone to do.

Why not go far in war since I must war

Regardless?  God and man are opposites

And thus could not keep truces long in me.

They often warred and shook me violently.

I wondered how the two in me were mixed:

Were they both loose?  Were they together chained?

Was one a cage that kept the other pent?

Did they conjoin in some third element?

However joined, despite all paradox,

I came. I saw. I conquered.  I now thank
Rome's daggers that the incarnation's past,

That I'm a pure and quakeless god at last.

*He was an epileptic whose family claimed descent from Venus.

            Brutus’s Defense

Did we do murder?  Not on Caesar’s watch.
Crime is defined within some rule of law.
His tyranny suspended rule of law.

Did we do evil?  Not in killing him

When reason would instead condemn the hands

Refusing reason and its pure demands.

We rescued reason when our blades brought down

The despot flaunting it.  And if we should

Now balance pain, we find the common good

We did outweighs the suffering Caesar felt.

We should be stoic, too, and recognize 

That fate spins narratives and thus denies

The choice required for blame.  And yet so what?

The finest reason never dulls the pain
As past replays itself time and again:

The awful cries, the sounds of blades against

The spine, the red spurts, then the vacant stare
As rigor mortis seizes Caesar there.

I am no hypocrite.  I've suffered, too,
In righting Rome vile Caesar had abused.
I need no flogging.  I'm already bruised.

            Marc Antony’s Defense

Will future generations laud my name?

No. History is pillage victors own.

The vanquished are deprived of it--and yet

I stand before the gods with no regret

Or fear.  The judgment of the gods, I know,

Is never swayed by pillaging below.

Before I fell, in Athens they hailed me

As a new Dionysus.  They were right.

I saw beyond convention.  Nature was

My measure--not some antique prejudice

That drew a line between the West and East.

Uncritical acceptance in me ceased:

I freed my mind and heart to analyze

All things in truth, not prejudice.  I spurned

The ancient, awful bigotry of Rome
Permitting one the lowest Roman wife

Yet banning Cleopatra as a bride.

Pure truth advised me, too, when Caesar died.

I would not profit from his murder.  I

Embraced the bloody vessel that once held

Great Caesar and I promised my revenge.

Whatever evil men might say of me,

I was a loyal friend who also dared

To free both mind and heart Rome once impaired.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here. 

Judas & Pilate Defend Themselves (Additions to "The Apology Box")

            Acrostic of Judas

Justice never punishes a deed

Unless it's evil, willed, and freely done.

Did I betray?  I did.  But fate forced me, 

And thus I did unfreely what the Lord

Set up instead as I shall briefly show.

Impelled by love, God had to make a world

Since isolation is love’s opposite.

Creation needed freedom all around--

An object of one’s love is not enslaved

Raising a contradiction:  what is free

Is free to sin and has a license that

Offends morality.  God's fix required

The incarnation penalty--not me.

I Mined and Shared from Matchless Mines of Me: Two Sonnets of Job (Apology Box Additions)

In these days when some claim to follow so-called prosperity theology, it's of course good to remember the story of Job.  It is, in fact, impossible to claim that one follows the Bible literally and yet also claim that God will lavish health and material reward on those who follow him. Similarly, suffering does not in and of itself indicate malfeasance. Both experience and Job tell us just the opposite.  We see good people suffer, and we see people who do bad things prosper nonetheless.  Of course, this is not to say that we are not often rewarded for good and that we are not often punished for doing wrong.  Nor is this to say that at least some form of reputational "karma" does not exist.  We of course build and lose reputations based upon our voluntary choices and we reap and suffer consequences of those choices.  However, all this occurs in the context of a world coming at us in countless ways that are also beyond our control and that deliver both bounties and setbacks that we don't deserve.  The best of us can live in poverty and ill-health despite our best efforts and those of us doing the worst can live in great prosperity.  To claim otherwise (1) rejects both experience and the Book of Job, (2) rejects true humanity itself, (3) rejects the compassion and understanding true virtue requires, and (4) demeans grace which, frankly, we all need to appreciate and cultivate more.