Milano, Italy, April 1945
The strongman doesn’t look all that strong
hanging by his ankles from a lamppost
the strongman now a pissed-upon dead man.
The strongman once a target of mob’s adulation
now humiliation of well-aimed cabbages as rotten
as his black-shirt thugs his macho megalomania.
Vainglorious no longer the strongman
neither primps nor proclaims nor declaims
as he’d done for more than twenty years.
Delusional overreaching for Roman renewal
the strongman doesn’t look all that strong
hanging by his ankles from a lamppost.
* Italian for upside down
Sottosopra

Illustration by Allen B. Thangkhiew
Posted On: May 14, 2025