Beaks Flapping & Feathers Flying

Dear Phidias, I have noticed of late, as I’m sure you have also, that he may
as well be a Pompey, this sad excuse for a Prime Minister: a grizzled balding
pate and a flapping body draped from head to toe in such preposterous ideas

about the quality of the purple; have you seen how he perambulates
the passageways and halls of the Senate? Always only three steps ahead
of the microphones, his staff, and his publicists? You must know Phidias,

that all our Legions, from the noble Generals and burnished Centurions,
to the lowliest of spear carriers, all are filled with the deepest disrespect for him;

and the Citizen body has long past begun to think it wiser to ignore his endless
blatherings about the impropriety of our civic levies and the grinding price of corn.
So would it really be disunity to say that like a vengeful flock of furies; beaks snapping,
and feathers flying; we should fall on him now and strip him to his under garments;

then to apply our claws to his naked genitals, his limbs, his hirsute chest
and his laurel crown? I can only now exhort you to prepare yourself Phidias:
best it should be done tonight when the moon is shrouded and the nightingale

is quite stilled in its song.  After the wine and the water libation, I will kiss him
on the cheek, then dismiss the rest of his bored retainers. You must wait in the shadows
that surround the stunted olives, crouched there tightly with our other friends.

All your heads must be properly covered with your togas; that much at least may be marked as seemly;
but I digress: there is no need for further talk now about the shouting and fear that will no doubt stain the linen. As to the dousing of the torches and the bathos

that must attend his final execution: all of it, Phidias, should not take very long …