Rome fell in a day

 

Gauls on druid brewed steroid juice

struck with superhuman strength

  resisting haircuts

and emperor oppression

they pushed the Colosseum pillars apart

crushing the Romans forces

while lions escaped their cages

and chased Delilah to France.

 

under an umbrella of superstition

and niggling barbarian intervention

darkness covered the rubble

spread across the Mediterranean

until the poets Dante and Petrarch

ignited a torch shining towards a path

paving the way to the Renaissance.

 

Humanism spread from Florence

filling libraries and schools

sparking the muse in artists

sharing their names with pizza eating

teenage mutant ninja turtles

spilling from freshly laid streets

up sculptures and spreading across ceilings.

 

that enlightened art lives on today.