Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
PERTINAX Jun 18
From Publius
To Marcus

Marcus, I must apologize:
It is true that I said you were as Antinous
To Gaius' Hadrianus,
But do not fret, it was not in jest;
I truly did ask the Gods to curse you so.

You see, this farm,
This land,
Has been my ward long before you...
In your Janus mask,
Were hired.
At least that God understands the difference
Between war and peace.

Unlike you, dear Marcus,
Who brings only chaos to the fields;
A greater pestilence than any drought or rot.
You are the weevil that spoils the grain,
Corrupting all around you.

Poor Gaius has already fallen
Under your impious spell.
His fields grow fallow from association
With you Marcus!

What shame you bring your family
With your lazy immorality,
Incapable of discerning right from wrong,
Lest it be ascribed by your new dominus, Gaius,
Whose skin your claws flay with fatal flattery.

All this while I tend both your fields,
And mine own,
Working myself to the bone;
The heat, and sweat, and bugs,
Reminiscent of Pluto's underworld.
To honor my family.
To feed my family.

I honor my ancestors Marcus!
Daily, I make offerings to Gods of house and state
At my household alter;

The Capitoline triad overflow with my piety,
Bringing abundance to mine soul and soil alike.
Plenty, that you, sweet Antinous, claim as your own.

No longer.
I'm divorcing myself from all of you.
You can have the land.
As it stands it would make a beautiful wedding plot.
I've even gone to the trouble of forging you a ring,
Meticulously sourced from your masters ****!

Consider it a fragrant farewell
From your favorite fan,
Who will fondly not remember you,
Even as you scramble without me,
And miss the coattails you rode,
To usurp my home.

Woe to the plow;
Proscribed to die in rust.

Signed,
PERTINAX
PERTINAX Jun 15
From Publius

To Gaius



Gaius, how long have we worked together now?



Three, four years?



Are we not as friends, whose sweat salts the soil?

Whose blood still stains mine alter?

...

And mine yours?

...

Have you forgotten your oath?

As brothers have we not sacrificed for the work?



In shared turmoil we toiled with miniscule minutias,

Always working together to make solutions

From pesty problems.

...

Yet, since you hired Marcus you have been different;

...

The work once shared has now become mine own.

No longer do you seek success in teamwork,



Nay,



Languid you have become with the work;

Heavy have mine shoulders become as a result.



Marcus is a joke.

Sure, he makes a fine comrade

Suitable for long binges of wine and women,

But his intellectual capacity is found wanting.

...

A detriment to getting the job done.

...

Still, you insist upon toting him around,

Holding his hand like a little lost puppy

Whose eyes water with weeping greed,

For more and more favoritism and need.

While, I, sit here and continue the work;

I am here finishing what we started, Gaius:



My SWEAT

...

My BLOOD



Has never ceased to pour forth to the land,

While you reap the harvest, leaving bare kernels

For your so called 'friend' to pick at.

...

Scraps as a reward for rearing another bountiful crop.

...

While Marcus lounges in your atrium,

******* plump figs,

...

That I have grown,

...

Spending more time in the lavatorium,

Than tilling the soil or plucking and picking.



No, dear Gaius, you can have the work.

Enjoy it with your dear Marcus.

He'd make a great Antinous to your Hadrianus.

...

Together, may the gods see you buggered in failure.

...

For this, I will make an offering of frankincense and myrrh

As I set off for new fields and greener pastures

To ply my trade.



One that you will find wanted in the days and months

To come.

...

I've new fields to plow


Seeds to sow


Crops to reap


And seedlings to grow

...

Like them, dear Gaius, I will thrive under noonday sun,

While you will wilt with your work.



Without me.



Signed,

PERTINAX
Hermes Varini Dec 2021
Mid Guðrum sê lêodgebyrga eft
On wanre niht, monajjfyllene!
Wulfe mîn geniwung! ond heorudreór,
Forescýwum wældreor-randwíga Ic,
Nêarra heoruwearg forþgêng
Monajjfyllene swâ! on hê byrnes scan
Æfre! êacen ond eotonweard æghwær,
Weelseaxe! ond êacnum ecgum Ic wæs,
Swâ bælegsan sê Ôfer-mann nu hâten,
Heolstorscuwae nu Ic, Lígetsliehtes Þegn,
Mid mîn styrme, æcse ond heorwe swâ!
Sê Brynewielm-Sundorgenga nu Ic!
Selden ond tówunderlic swâ
Norðanwinde eac Ísenhelm hâten,
Æfre scielde sê Ôfer-mann swâ Ic!
Wulfes êagum! ond hwítum fængtóþum,
Binnan swâ sweart wudubearo,
Mîn ðæt wildor, hwæt! on gehwæðre hond,
Eft sweordwígend ond sweordwund
Réadede Ic swâ! wundor sceawian Ic!
Hwonne swâ mîn gúðgewæde,
Beorht bleóreádan bladesungum
Hwæt! æfre sê feorhléan wæs swâ,
Ond uferra sîn heolfrig andweorc
Swâ âstemped eft mîn cwealmdréor!
Ærdæd unsigefæst þær biþ
Mînes gewilles beadwum swâ,
Hwonne sprindlíce, giet monajjfyllene!
Beadwe-grîman Sceade Heorudreór gladaþ,
Hwonne swâ snyttrum ond singale!
Êcan arodscipes hringedstefna
Þunringe mîn ealdor-dôm âheardaþ,
Hwonne stearcheort on ecnesse swâ!
Onforeweard Þunores Heall heoru-drêore
Mîn scinn wiðerwinna flângeweorc
Ealfela! giet on wanre niht eftwyrde,
Stíele ond forescýwan! sê Ôfer-mann Ic,
Swâ wæpenþracu! Swâ sigorwuldor!
Æledfýre bisene Ic, sê Swígtíma-Wrecend!
Swâ Mônan Wulfe! dæges ond nihtes nu!
Hríðe mîn írenhelme gegangan:

HERMÓÐR REGIS GOTHORVM VLTOR
FVLMINE IGNIQVE IN BELLO TERRÆ
ÚLFHEÐINN VINDEX SVPREMVS
IN SPIRALIS VINDICTÆ SACRA FLAMMA
ET MAGNO CORVSCANTE SPECVLO
IVGITER ALTO INCENDIO MIHI REDITVS
CALIGINIS HRAFNSMERKI VEXILLAQVE
AB VLTIMA THVLE SACRA FLAMMA
IGNEO SANGVINEQVE HÖÐR EXPVGNATOR
SICVT LVPVS VLTIMÆ THVLE TONITRVQVE
DECIMO ANNO FELICIS VINDICTÆ
VINDEX SVPREMVS INVICTVSQVE DENVO
CÆRVLEO FVLMINE IN BELLO TERRÆ
SACRA FLAMMA OVERMAN SCYLD.
A composition of mine in full Anglo-Saxon, as ending in Classical Latin. “Scyld” is an Anglo-Saxon variant for “shield”. A message is contained, told in the first person again (“Ic” or “I”). The narrator walks through a dreary forest, wearing a Sutton Hoo type helmet (“beadwe-grîman” meaning “with the War-Mask”, a kenning, my own, for “helmet” and “írenhelme”), alone and wounded, indeed empowered with a Sacral Fire, at night (“on wanre niht”) and in a time of full moon (“monajjfyllene”). The whole alliteration focuses on “swâ” meaning “thus”, “so”, “therefore”. A Drakkar is mentioned, with its spiral figurehead associated with the motion in Pure Core Energy, that is, in my own Return of Power event, the latter granting, in purifying Heraclitean fire, the necessary Return of the Antithetical Overman. "Heolstorscuwae nu Ic, Lígetsliehtes Þegn" reads "now through the Darkness I, the Thane (historical title, Lord) of the Thunderbolt", "Wulfes êagum! ond hwítum fængtóþum" "with the wolf's eyes! and the white fangs" and “sê Swígtíma-Wrecend” “the Avenger of the Silence” (this latter a kenning, my own, for "warrior"). The god Þunor is also mentioned. As to the final verses, the Old Norse word “ÚLFHEÐINN” stands for “with a Wolfskin Cloak”, thus indicating a Berserker. “HRAFNSMERKI” refers to the Black Ravens of Odin as appearing on Viking battle standards (VEXILLA), these generally dark (CALIGINIS).
Chris Saitta Oct 2021
Love, unruliest hope, when fierce Diana went wild
With savage discourse, the arrow-stroke of her tongue—
While rage-hounds bay in wooded Gargaphie—aimed at Actaeon.
Or old Baucis her god-giving bone fat of mind,
Stewed the broth of covenant for Zeus to repay in kind.
Then Parthenope, siren-stung in her whirlpool of sea vines,
Her maiden-voice is a breath of sand for Naples to muse upon.
The body of Helen still lies in ages-old smoke over our cities,
We live in the timberframe of her bones of burned ships.
Why can’t her death be an end to all skies?
All these myths have some form of love, whether unrequited, holy, self-sustaining, or ruinous.  

Diana, goddess of the hunt, turned Actaeon into a stag who was then chased and killed by his own hounds; he had gazed on her bathing.

Baucis and Philemon, an old couple, provided food and shelter to two wandering peasants, the gods Zeus and Hermes in disguise.  The town had shunned the two, and Zeus urged the old couple to safety while he destroyed the town.  Their home then became a temple.

Parthenope, a siren whose name means maiden-voice, drowned herself when she failed to lure Odysseus; her body washed up on the shore of what became Naples.

The well-known myth of Helen, whether seduced or abducted by Paris, launched the Trojan War and as Marlowe famously wrote, “Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, / And burnt the ******* towers of Ilium.”
Hex May 2021
Slipping free from yester's time,
A Feather trapses yond the way,
On wind it floats, a step, sublime,
Dipping and ducking flakes of grey,
Those forged by winter, the sun's decay,
Plates of ivory, why must they hack?
Torn soil, a relic of why you turn away,
Soar away, O Feather, and don't float back.

O Sea, so fair, shimmering as a chime,
As the wind you switch, and you sway,
And your blues shine like a dime,
But if he drifts beyond the bay,
Will waters claim him, as they say?
Or shall he wash back, with the wrack?
To you, O Sea, he mustn't stray,
Soar away, O Feather, and don't float back.

O Mount, your peak, the rigorous climb,
At your summit, scores kneel and pray,
Your caps glow white, with a grass bed of lime,
If you were where the feather must stay,
Shall your perils bring him fray?
Must he lie in caves of black?
Nay, a feather must fly, and outward he must splay,
Soar away, O Feather, and don't float back.

O Feather, O Feather, where will you spend your days?
Here I must halt on the trail of your track,
Seize the wind, O Feather, the world is your prey,
Soar away, O Feather, and don't float back.
A tale of independence.
Bobby Dodds Apr 2021
All things ancient are once born young.
All things secret are shared by tongue.
All things hatred are worn with love.
All things whispered are sung by doves.
All things stone always come undone.
the inspiration for this poem primarily came from the thought i had, that all things like ancient or old or archaic were once young, smart words out of the mouths of the loud. brand new and original, and here we are, writing about them, like they're old news or yesterdays column.
Inori Kimimoto Feb 2021
I remember when we first met,
t’was a chill’d Autumn day.
Oh, how ever could I forget!
it was a Friday, many a May.

On that day, stood thee:
fair skin’d and rosey cheek’d,
dark plumes in morning gust.
your gaze my eye had seek’d,
your touch my heart did lust.

on that day, stood I:
heart heavy with fluster,
stood I still as time did flow;
if only courage could I muster,
my love for you would I show.

Wo! my heart did cry,
Wo! had I sadly weep’d,
until my name you did call
and my heart to heavens leap’d.
oh the joy! I still recall.

~ Inori
A poem for a girl with fair skin and rosey cheeks
Norman Crane Feb 2021
Five red haired maidens / resting symmetry
Draped in bluest sky / arranged peacefully
Interwined pink flowers / chaining togetherly
One composition / from Antiquity
Arms wilt with leisure / classically painted
Their wild thoughts blooming / a pale recreation
Seated in judgment / of time untainted
By modernity / By degradation
in eternal youth / in a single row
They sit and they watch / seasons come and go
Norman Crane Sep 2020
Despite all my rage
I am still just four minutes
of silence
                          —John Cage
Next page