Heart of Empire

Brueghel’s Triumph of Death

Seems more like aftermaths

Of some executions.

Techniques of Execution,

It could have been titled,

But we’re not in the mood

For ekphrasis today,

So never mind. It popped

Up in thought perusing

A book on misery

In sixteenth-century

Europe. A funny thing,

How the same century

In which Europe’s kingdoms

Battened on colonies—

Era Europeans

Were racing through conquests—

What misery at home.

Same for every empire,

Every colonial

Era—name your poison.

The wealth of victories

Only fed unequal

Ratios rising within

Triumphant capitals.

Ask someone at the fringe,

They’d guess the citizens—

Whites, Arabs, Romans, Han,

Babylonians, Turks—

All had it made compared

To conquered indigenes,

Barbarians, heathens,

Infidels, the vanquished—

But someone was always

Starving in there, or hanged

And displayed for the birds.