through the dying energumene’s rictus
the aerolite god of Emesa
announced it was the Sol Invictus
adored by Elagabalus Caesar
the cleric and Hobbes alike had vouched
for a politics of the deathbed
for one so adept at those of the couch
now putrescent and thoroughly bled
what a show from that repentant centaur
the Lord Protector of Gomorrah
the patient tore on like a meteor
having broken all the laws of Noah
until all hope landed on Death perplexed
our shooting star on the Wild West of Sex
Oxford
30 July 2018
This is about the deathbed of the poet John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester who died on 27 July 1680. Gilbert Burnet, the future bishop, had been attending him, and publicised the event.
The depraved adolescent Elagabalus, Aurelian, Diocletian and for a time, Constantine, were Roman emperors devoted to the cult of the Sol Invictus. There are seven Laws of Noah - the Noachide Covenant or Dispensation.