Two thousand years ago, Juvenal characterized Roman society as needing only two things — bread and circuses.  For bread, there was the grain dole to all Roman citizens, and for circuses, the gladiator in the Coliseum and the chariot race in Circus Maximus (there were four teams to root for, identified by the colors of their jerseys, white, red, green, and blue).  American society isn’t all that different.  For food, we have our food stamps and welfare programs, and for circuses, we have televised professional sports where everyone has a home team to root for.  Has anything really changed?  Juvenal would be right at home in modern America.

“Bread and Circuses”

My Story

You see one now and then –
A November rose with all its pedals still blazing in full glory.
It stands out against the dank and dreary ground
Stark as a beacon in the night.
It’s nature’s graceful last hurrah
Against the rising tide of time.
So, if you happen to chance upon one,
Tarry a while, and gaze upon its splendor
To appreciate the fleeting tragedy
Of this delicate, tremulous last stand,
For it is not unlike your own.

All Poetry — Henry Barnard

Sepia Flowers

My Story

Before and after thee, an infinity.
Life but a momentary thing
That dissolves in eternity.
Applause and glory, misbegotten,
Your memory long forgotten.

The directing mind alone a divinity.
The body a loathsome encumbrance.
To benefit others the nitty-gritty —
Everything else a wide circumference.

Dedicate your life to others, the mantra.
Dismiss pleasure and pain, a recanter.
Come back to the inner mind, a sanctuary.
Remember the one purpose eleemosynary.

He wrote to himself not to forget,
Keep to the singular purpose dead set.
The brightest star in the night sky, Sirius,
That’s the immortal Marcus Aurelius.

All poetry — Henry Barnard

My Story

You have heard the awful stories recounted many times.  Someone loses control to road rage and shoots and kills another driver or some variation with the same outcome — one man, incensed, murders another, a total stranger, with no reasonable justification.

And our common reaction to this scenario is stark horror that anyone could be so cruel as to willfully murder a perfect stranger that way.  But I would submit the murderer is also a victim here.  The roads are really a disaster lying in wait for the next impatient driver, and we are all that impatient driver — we are all in a hurry to get where we are going fast, and yet the roads are often filled beyond their capacity, particularly at rush hour.  So they are a trap waiting in the wings for all of us — we are all susceptible to being swept away…