The Year Of Liberty & Fraternity In Naples -1799 (For Janice) Poem by Dónall Dempsey

San Gennaro
(patron saint of Naples)

whose skull clutched
in a bishop’s shaky hands

stops Vesuvius’s lava flows
in their tracks

finds himself utilised
for political purposes.

His blood
bottled in a phial

miraculously liquefies

hopefully each year
on his feast day.

If not...
dreadful events will
...ensue.

Naples is busy
falling to the French

& the Grande Armée
is fearful of the clergy

fiddling the blood.

A failed liquefaction
might trigger a revolt

so to ensure
a happy result

the French commander
(taking no chances)

holds a cocked
pistol

to the sweating
priest’s head

until
it
does

forcing the blood
to be

obedient to
its new masters.

Somewhere Napoleon
laughs.