Julius Caesar In The 21st Century
(thoughts prompted by Shakespeare’s play)
In the Forum,
we stand among the crowd and lend our ears
to whosoever’s rhetoric is balm.
Those men in togas! All so ambitious:
one’s greedy to bestride the little Earth
like a Colossus;
another has a lean and hungry look –
he thinks too much
and this we do not like.
How hot it is! But some Mark Antony,
who always had our hearts, borrows our minds
and moulds them easily.
We run headlong through the streets
shouting,
the dust rising beneath our feet.
© John Looker 2016
This is the fourth of five personal reflections in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
Poetry from John Looker 
Treacherous thing to do– borrow and replant some of the gaudiest flowers of our language! But it mostly workspace just fine…the final image caps the performances with an originals and post symbolic move that reflects on the rising of the motes of dust as a metaphor for the rising of the finely sifted phrases in this new setting, or am I seeing things?
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By: Tom D'Evelyn on 15 June, 2016
at 08:17
Please forgive typos but John’s workspace is precisely what I’m interested in!
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By: Tom D'Evelyn on 15 June, 2016
at 08:21
That means a lot, coming from you – thank you Tom. It was a risky thing to do – you’re right.
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By: John Looker on 15 June, 2016
at 08:54
Hi John… would you contact me outside of wordpress channels for a quick ‘conversation’?
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By: chucky0629 on 26 June, 2016
at 01:30
Reblogged this on chithankalai.
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By: chithankalai on 15 June, 2016
at 17:50
Thank you – I feel very honoured.
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By: John Looker on 15 June, 2016
at 17:56
It does seem, doesn’t it, John, that Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare both provide us with a perennial garden from which to gather our own bouquets and arrange them in the crystal vases of our time, as you have so aptly done here.
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By: Cynthia Jobin on 15 June, 2016
at 22:22
Doesn’t it just! And then Shakespeare himself gathered ideas and material from Plutarch’s ‘Lives’, I understand.
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By: John Looker on 16 June, 2016
at 07:35
Then there’s the woman (it was told to me this way, a woman) who disliked Shakespeare because his plays were full of famous quotes. Didn’t he write anything original? I particularly like (if that’s the word) the scene where the crowd jumps all over Cinna, the poet. It seems so gratuitous and necessary to the play.
This is a nice tribute to the old boy. (Did Shakespeare give us ‘old boy’?)
I think I’ll let mine stand (or fall) with ‘Olives of Endless Age’
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By: extrasimile on 21 June, 2016
at 09:15
Cinna? Yes, and mistaken identity – there’s something so true to life there. I enjoyed your ‘Olives’ tribute, Jim
(Apropos mistaken identity: my spell checker tried twice to substitute China for Cinna!)
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By: John Looker on 21 June, 2016
at 09:29
I’m off to see Julius Caesar by Door Shakespeare on August 15th, my birthday, with my daughter who teaches high school English, her family, and Ethel, so seeing this is really a treat. Oh, the people in power! What a crew they are. And Mark Antony! I enjoyed this, John, a lot.
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By: Thomas Davis on 21 June, 2016
at 19:37
Please excuse my slow response Tom – life here in the UK has been remarkably busy the last few days – but thank you, and it sounds like you and your family are in for a treat.
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By: John Looker on 26 June, 2016
at 10:04
I enjoyed this clever poem in which you borrow so many phrases from Shakespeare. I didn’t know that he borrowed much from others but am glad that he did for otherwise the words might not have crept into our daily vocabulary. I believe that it was his brilliant tutelage which made it happen.
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By: jstansfeld on 22 June, 2016
at 21:47
Thank you for that – I’m sorry to have been slow responding (events here in the UK have been overwhelming the last few days).
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By: John Looker on 26 June, 2016
at 10:06
Is Donald Trump in the U.S.?
Those men in togas! All so ambitious:
one’s greedy to bestride the little Earth
like a Colossus
I nominate him and most of the Republicans who just ran for Presidents.
I’m sure you could nominate some Britons.
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By: Thomas Davis on 23 June, 2016
at 15:56
Only too true Tom!
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By: John Looker on 26 June, 2016
at 10:07
I’m enjoying your Shakespeare series a lot, John.
I remember when first reading Shakespeare’s Caesar how much like a 20th Century demagogue Marc Antony sounded – the bitterness and sarcasm rising to rage… I can’t imagine there were many public speeches like it in Shakespeare’s time though, which again shows his uncanny grasp of human nature.
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By: Andy Fleck on 30 June, 2016
at 14:27
You make a strong point Andy: like you I see parallels between Shakespeare’s play and modern times but, as you say, Shakespeare’s time itself would have been rather different!
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By: John Looker on 30 June, 2016
at 18:02