PIRANESI'S ROME
(1720 -1788)

Drawing us to the dark side
spliced from
an encyclopedic memoir
of old Roman dreams
at reactionary tyranny
walls etched
in dreaded memory
from carbon dated ink
now validated
by an upstaged time
incarcerated from
an imprisoned art
as only a neo classic artist
like Giovanni Piranesi
with a clever illustrated presage
and feathered passage
emerges for a coming change
in a stunning Romantic age
from prisons and catacombs
of the past decorators in archives
from newly risen lives
of never finalized perspectives
dying through weathered ruins
of a museum's airless corridors.