One of the benefits of being dead:
ability to skip the airport queue.
I travel at the speed of thought instead,
whenever I desire a change of view.
Invisible, I visit my old haunts,
hoping I shall receive my due acclaim.
Two centuries of hearing vulgar taunts,
because I saved the slabs that bear my name!
Reliefs have been relieved – and they are prized
by connoisseurs who travel to adore
the treasures of the land that civilized
unlettered breeds who lived without the law.
But wait! . . . In Athens they have built a shrine,
where strong Hellenic light shines in upon
more masterpieces of that grand design,
arranged to reconstruct the Parthenon.
My native country undergoes decline,
its politics corrupt, its morals slack.
The booty I once took was never mine.
The time has come to send the marbles back.