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At Capernaum, 1
The empire is a business, nothing more.
Each country that they conquer, every war
they wage, is driven by the goal of profit---
investments, taxes. We are told to cough it
up when the publicans, who swarm this land,
wave forth the greased palm of the grasping hand.
From marketplace, to lake, to sulfur mine,
Rome values nothing but the bottom line.
Their shadowed presence, falling over table
and hearth, binds us as tightly as a cable.
And yet, no matter what they have arranged,
their policy is all too often changed
by someone at headquarters. Thus, unstable,
Rome cannot calculate its own conceit,
but smears the world across a balance sheet.
