Turning Point
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Sample Poems by Naomi Feigelson Chase
To the Reader
Do not trust those fickle chroniclers,
Whose noses graze the throne's floor,
To write your life.
Would you credit Cleopatra's last
Words to Antony before the asp bit her,
Unless she spit them from her dying lips.
Historians lie.
I'd rather scratch my own form
On a triumphal arch
Than let my heirs engrave it.
Cast your own shadow.
A life is small.
This was My Mistress's first entry in her Journal. As we sat in her Rome Palace, with Alaric and his Goths at the city gates, she said to me,"I count on you."
6 April, 410: How Alaric Took Rome
Alaric, the Goth King,
Whose knee I sat on as a child,
Yesterday took Rome. Took me.
His men stole, raped, set fires; no worse,
My Goth nurse says, than Romans, when
They laid waste her kin.
I was ready. We had waited years,
As Alaric advanced, withdrew. Each time,
Returning bolder. Each time, more men,
Demanding more gold.
The Senate owed him,
But knit their hands.
He split them open.
There were months, days when the Goths camped outside Rome. Those nights, My Mistress refused to dress for bed. She would sit till dawn in her purple robes and gold armbands, should the enemy strike after midnight, and she not be prepared.
Not Worth My Skin
Alaric's eyes are curtained.
His long mustache and beard
Are blonde-red.
Like his people, he wears furs:
Wolf, beaver, bear,
Their hides for leggings.
Among these shaggy men and women,
Who twine silvered beads in long braids
I'm the rare human in their nether circus.
They sign themselves as animals.
I'm trapped, my skin worth less
Than the pelts on their tent floors.
My Mistress knew Alaric from childhood. Now she feared him, unsure of his intent. She had never imagined people lived like this, dressed like this. She asked me to braid her hair.
Traveling
Lepida doesn't taunt me by saying
Now I'll know how it is,
Living with the enemy.
She was six when Romans captured her,
Before her parents drowned,
Crossing the freezing Rhine.
She was eight when I was born,
And she became my nurse.
Ten when she became my mother.
I was never flippant with My Mistress about slavery. I lived it and was lucky to live. No matter that my parents were of royal Gothic lineage. Royals are valuable hostages.
Our Education
In the Palace, Lepida and I
Were tutored as one: Latin, History, Classics.
Serena objected. Lepida was a Goth slave.
I insisted.
Here, Lepida is my grammar,
My curriculum.
Captivity is my lesson.
Serena, My Mistess's Aunt, became her guardian after the Emperor died. They hated each other. Serena kept her closed up in the palace. She ordered My Mistress to write every day in a Journal. My Mistress refused."Serena would trap me with my own thoughts,"she said. Instead, My Mistress trapped her. As you will see.
To the Reader
Do not trust those fickle chroniclers,
Whose noses graze the throne's floor,
To write your life.
Would you credit Cleopatra's last
Words to Antony before the asp bit her,
Unless she spit them from her dying lips.
Historians lie.
I'd rather scratch my own form
On a triumphal arch
Than let my heirs engrave it.
Cast your own shadow.
A life is small.
This was My Mistress's first entry in her Journal. As we sat in her Rome Palace, with Alaric and his Goths at the city gates, she said to me,"I count on you."
6 April, 410: How Alaric Took Rome
Alaric, the Goth King,
Whose knee I sat on as a child,
Yesterday took Rome. Took me.
His men stole, raped, set fires; no worse,
My Goth nurse says, than Romans, when
They laid waste her kin.
I was ready. We had waited years,
As Alaric advanced, withdrew. Each time,
Returning bolder. Each time, more men,
Demanding more gold.
The Senate owed him,
But knit their hands.
He split them open.
There were months, days when the Goths camped outside Rome. Those nights, My Mistress refused to dress for bed. She would sit till dawn in her purple robes and gold armbands, should the enemy strike after midnight, and she not be prepared.
Not Worth My Skin
Alaric's eyes are curtained.
His long mustache and beard
Are blonde-red.
Like his people, he wears furs:
Wolf, beaver, bear,
Their hides for leggings.
Among these shaggy men and women,
Who twine silvered beads in long braids
I'm the rare human in their nether circus.
They sign themselves as animals.
I'm trapped, my skin worth less
Than the pelts on their tent floors.
My Mistress knew Alaric from childhood. Now she feared him, unsure of his intent. She had never imagined people lived like this, dressed like this. She asked me to braid her hair.
Traveling
Lepida doesn't taunt me by saying
Now I'll know how it is,
Living with the enemy.
She was six when Romans captured her,
Before her parents drowned,
Crossing the freezing Rhine.
She was eight when I was born,
And she became my nurse.
Ten when she became my mother.
I was never flippant with My Mistress about slavery. I lived it and was lucky to live. No matter that my parents were of royal Gothic lineage. Royals are valuable hostages.
Our Education
In the Palace, Lepida and I
Were tutored as one: Latin, History, Classics.
Serena objected. Lepida was a Goth slave.
I insisted.
Here, Lepida is my grammar,
My curriculum.
Captivity is my lesson.
Serena, My Mistess's Aunt, became her guardian after the Emperor died. They hated each other. Serena kept her closed up in the palace. She ordered My Mistress to write every day in a Journal. My Mistress refused."Serena would trap me with my own thoughts,"she said. Instead, My Mistress trapped her. As you will see.