Progress

I wrote 93 lines of Areopoesis today.
Here are a few.

One night, I dreamed that I was in Berlin just after the Great War
While a witty academic chuckled about habilitation
And then suddenly serious turned to his subject of science.
As he spoke I saw those around me stretched upon the rack, pleading
With their ruffed doppelgangers, who wore high hats with hose and held books
In which the prerogative courts’ pleas were in Latin recorded.
The orator would pause judiciously and then the racked observe
And cluck at the men at law who turned and glowered at him and said,
“Thy misprisions are known to us and Verulam will have thy soul.”
What could I do after all but laugh though I was in pain myself
For I stared at myself face to face while weighty stones pressed my nude
Body, crushing my ribs to dust as I asked, “Wilt thou make thy plea?”
I caught a glimpse of what I now had supposed was the speaker’s heart:
But instead saw a salamander with the black horns of a bull
Crouching with its head marked in blood “Political Economy.”

My profound respect for anyone who can identify A) The orator, B) The identity of the doppelgangers, or C)What is being done to me in the dream.