Julius Caesar Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

O what is it makes
a man so envied, so misunderstood,
that omens in the heavens shake
and men under their dark hoods

cannot look one another in the eye,
and dogs, in fear or shame, cringe in the streets?
Is this such an extraordinary day, the ides,
a day for lingering in bed under damp sheets

a day on which a wife whispers of her husband’s deeds,
not knowing where it is he plans to be,
or who it was who first sowed the seeds
around whose blossoms now the bees

are crowding in? There, there! – the poppies’ fresh
red redolence on flesh,
and on the breeze’s breath
another cloying fragrance – flowering death.