Spent Treasure

Spent Treasure

Julius Caesar desired Brittania
not its tin for soldiers weaponry
but for an island strung with pearls
the rarest and most prized of gems
he would face the channel storms

Caesar’s lust for jewels and gold 
with captives sent to plunder banks
shuck icy rivers’ mussel stores
and freeze for gods of vanity
to secure the emperor's fame

a cuirass made of British pearls
he laid on Venus Genetrix
ancestor of the Julian line
holy mother of the Roman state
could tempt a queen into his bed

reserved for the nobility alone
set within crown jewels to come
adornment for Elizabethan gowns
protected now so few remain
it’s rare to find a pearl or humble shell.

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