MIDAS, THEMISTOCLES AND THE REST

They drank bull's blood,

so the ancients tell us, to die.

'But we drink bull's blood

to be more virile,

and we don't die!'

the moderns interject.

The chemists, bless them,

give us an arsenic compound

from antiquity, red

like bull's blood

and deadly. The kings

of old died

like victims in

country mansions of

Agatha Christie.

10.01.2018