A Coin for Belisarius

He's the broken figure on that pub sign,

where Jack the Hat saw another's death

under Belisarius's begging bowl:

the two twins interred themselves now;

characters undreamed of by war poets

turned novelists, in exile.

Our Belisarius huddles in London doorways,

far from the easternized East End;

no helmet for his call to alms,

simply an incongruous schoolboy cap

filled with smaller, duller coins.

He's whistling meanwhile.

The former soldier doesn't see

the taxi-cabs and transit vans,

or pedestrian fraternity.

Lurching tanks and armoured cars

and more bloody infantry

pass his vacant smile.

The Last of the Romans is far from

Germania and has long since left

behind the modern Ostrogoth

of flowing beard and Mahdi glint,

save in the battlefield of his dreams

and waking nightmares vile.