01-19-2015, 12:30 PM
@tectak: What is poetry without a little esoterica, said the bratty twentysomething? 
I don't mind explaining the meaning of the brass bull line because there isn't really one. The brass bull is the idol the Jews worshipped in the desert after the exodus and before Moses said "no idols", and "teem with lice" is just a nasty image I liked the sound of. Also, there's allusions to a brass bull snorting in darkness in Dennis Wheatley's The Satanist, a novel I like.
"Roman" is synonymous with Catholic in both instances and for my purposes. One bit of esoterica you might have missed is the mention of John", now that I think about it. I have a sinking suspicion that readers think I'm referring to John Calvin, when in fact the passage I took the epigram from contains an allusion to John 1:21 in the Bible. From Calvin's treatise: "This undoubtedly is the reason why John ... enjoins us to beware, not only of the worship of idols, but also of idols themselves."
@Erthona: Thank you for your very kind, helpful and honest feedback >< If you defer to milo, I defer to you, and the three of us create a human centipede of poetry
Just kidding!
I don't mind explaining the meaning of the brass bull line because there isn't really one. The brass bull is the idol the Jews worshipped in the desert after the exodus and before Moses said "no idols", and "teem with lice" is just a nasty image I liked the sound of. Also, there's allusions to a brass bull snorting in darkness in Dennis Wheatley's The Satanist, a novel I like. "Roman" is synonymous with Catholic in both instances and for my purposes. One bit of esoterica you might have missed is the mention of John", now that I think about it. I have a sinking suspicion that readers think I'm referring to John Calvin, when in fact the passage I took the epigram from contains an allusion to John 1:21 in the Bible. From Calvin's treatise: "This undoubtedly is the reason why John ... enjoins us to beware, not only of the worship of idols, but also of idols themselves."
@Erthona: Thank you for your very kind, helpful and honest feedback >
< If you defer to milo, I defer to you, and the three of us create a human centipede of poetry Just kidding!