New light on historical figures

Slowly and dreamily

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Far away, in the rhinoceros-strewn archipelagoes
and up a tree-tomato tree
eating parasangs, and plucking at his feathers
with a green kamptulicon
Julio Caesar sits bemused
unwilling to admit that no longer can
he make things happen on coins.

Far, far away, in a monkey-puzzle tree
a puzzled monkey sits bemusd
wrenching (with a monkey wrench)
the nearest fellow-monkey: Hannibal incognito.

Be watchful for the left-handed spanners
which fall so plentifully from trees today.
When those above relax their grip,
Sprong! Hexagonal Hannibal.

Hannibal-shit lay colden where it dropped
among the Spanish mountains
along with Persian cowpats, toads-turds
and ordinary dung of all descriptions.
However, grey matter still flourishes
on the inner slopes.

I am exiled beyond the borders of your mind:
did I smuggle horn amulets through the bamboo
where the wild six-legged jumping tortoise stalks
and scratching spams thrive?
But a soggy brown cloud has
settled on us for the winter.
The shiny Sino-tubular monsters are coming!
The tropics freeze.

This coin is worn down to a knucklebone.
Let us pick up our heads and our tails
from the baggage-check room, and leave quietly,
not making a fuss that
Caesar is cheated of two heads and a tail.

The rhino-rider swans across the Pyrenees
armed with 55 million monkey-wrenches,
a slot machine, the Great Pyramid of Cheops,
the last parasang, and a nut.

But Hannibal had kidnapped the
Present King of France,
ransoms for the Swiss Navy,
and attacks the seacoast of Bohemia.
By this means was raised the
price of fish in North Sahara
and Caesar's army starved to Tribulation.

She counts her money on the table:
a counterfeit brass farthing and a feit washer.
Caesar chews the last parasang
and Hannibal is void.

Dennis List