ROME UNRHYMED 

by Ron Smith

O you traveler seeking Rome in Rome,

you’ll find in Rome nothing Roman—sure, a few

weathered arches, palaces partitioned into flats. 

Roma alone tells you (roll your Poundian r) this

is Rome. See, it’s an old story, the gradual then

sudden loss of charisma, hot press of glitter-eyed 

admirers cutting you to bits, palming hunks away 

under their togas, buried in a hundred gardens, piece 

by bloody piece, founding lawmakers lawless into

the earth, city of statutes & their vulgar violation,

unconquered, self-conquered, because that’s 

what happens, get over it. Rome that funnels traffic 

into traffic, traffic blending into proliferating traffic, 

Rome that has risen from its Senecan bloodbaths, 

its smog, its exhausting jaded vitality. The yellow-

my-ass Tiber, scraping along its resented walls,     

keeps passing by, sludging past Ostia, brick 

museum sung only by cicadas in the picturesque 

pines, storied watercourse on its way to the airport. 

Fly in, spiral down from the Gianicolo, passeggiata 

the Corso with the locals, slap yourself with pasta, 

limoncello your way weaving to your too-soft bed. 

Fly away from this jumble of gnawed bones,

this tram-zinging, motorino-flashing, fountain-

teeming, this phenomenological idolatry, this

sensory fetishization of stone, flesh, gesticulation,

degradation, this piss-&-vinegar, this orgy of

epochs, gutsful of glory, this surfeit of the stylish, 

archaic avant-gardist of the long-dead & lovingly-new. 

“Let us suppose that Rome is not a place . . ., but 

a psychical entity.” Or, “say the thing’s 

an art-form,” sledgehammered Grecian Urn, 

a staggering shambles & a shimmering shame.

                ROME (by Ezra Pound)

         from the French of Joachim du Bellay

          “Troica Roma resurges.”–Propertius

 O thou new comer who seek'st Rome in Rome

 And find'st in Rome no thing thou canst call Roman;

 Arches worn old and palaces made common,

 Rome's name alone within these walls keeps home.

 Behold how pride and ruin can befall

 One who hath set the whole world 'neath her laws,

 All-conquering, now conquered, because

 She is Time's prey and Time consumeth all.

 Rome that art Rome's one sole last monument,

 Rome that alone hast conquered Rome the town,

 Tiber alone, transient and seaward bent,

 Remains of Rome. O world, thou unconstant mime!

 That which stands firm in thee Time batters down,

 And that which fleeteth doth outrun swift time.

     [from Personae: The Shorter Poems of Ezra Pound, a revised

       edition prepared by Lea Baechler & A. Walton Litz]