The sweat streaming down my eye brow
Looking at the arrow in my ankle that was shot by Paris' bow
Oh my briseis, please don't cry
My shield and spear are always yours as i point it at the sky
Zeus, you have blessed me with immortality but oh i am cursed
All my life i've been killing men for another's thirst
Finally my chains have been broken, i can breathe
This cold feels nice, my sword at last in it's sheath

Sunset whispers to itself
~No time outlives time~
The meltemi winds crackle the wild millet,
Graze-feed upon the stalks of Greek plains,
The pelican scoops up the honeyed Aegean,
Waves of sunlit anise and almond in refrain,
Vestigial as the sweet persimmon from Egypt,
The hammered warmth from the flat anvil of Africa,
Sunset whispers to itself
~No time outlives time~

I dare not scratch the surface Plato itched,
For fear I'd break my fingers on the stone.
My faculties in circles whirl around,
Which metaphor Aristotle would bemoan.

My femininity is undenied
And thus my musings, when they first began,
Would be utterly rejected, undeniably rebuked,
By one featherless bipedal man.

The History that gulped Atlantis down
Into its sunken depths, has made a grave
For all free thinkers, locked by secret PINs.
Philosophy, no more, these souls can save.

I carry naught but spades in both my hands,
Seeking to unearth artful thought's tomb.
Labor-sweat pours down, yet I am left to merely mourn
The heartbeat ne'er since heard from Athen's womb.

Paris came back to troy
And saw Hector on the shore.
He told him he had found his love
But what he found was war.

directionally challenged
athens is the only city
her feet knows,
she wanders down alleyways
undiscovered
but familiar
and sits beneath an orange tree.
she takes one plump
sunset shaded fruit,
peels back thick skin,
juice gushes down her arm.
yet she smells cypress trees,
olive oil offerings, and cinnamon.
she whispers prayer,
nimble fingers pressing
a golden owl.

At the valley
Of butterflies
In Rhodes, Greece
I encountered
Nature's love affair
Feisty flowers
Rainbow colors
Flying gorgeously everywhere
Beyond anybody's reach
Fluttering here and there
Once the caterpillars
Magically turned into animated fairies
Gently hugging the trees
With their soft and fragile wings
Their inexplicable performance
Has fully mesmerized
Thousands of travelers
Enjoying the splendors
Of this world
And to be one of them
I am so gratified

the gods debate and then concede:
"His punishment is empathy!"

they could have excused the self-assurance,
the love of an entity built in their holy image;
the conclusion that You are the only one good enough for You.
they could not condone Your vicious deeds --
they would not condone the blood.

the gods debate and then concede
Your punishment is empathy
(though never enough to spare a thought
for my voice within the cavern walls
or the spattered blood of Ameinias
or the righteousness of Nemesis)

**** You, bless You, Your Holy Reflection
condemning the flowers and mountains to dirt;
the suitors (silent in Your wake) reduced to peripheral blurs,
forgoing all the world for the sake of Your one true love --
still steadfastly playing martyr,
not the fool with His fingertips hovering inches from the water,
doting on His Image! loving like gods love irony and a brute-force punchline!

the gods' one choice was to concede
Your punishment was empathy
while the verbal paradise in my mind smoulders into ash.

if You spared just a thought for me (love was never a necessity)
Your words would then be mine:
instead i speak through nobody with thoughts that barely rhyme.
i am small, a silent letter in an 'echo';
arms linked, moving in rhythm, with my siblings --
Your story rhymes, each chapter weaving into a chorus

the gods reprise when they concede:
"His punishment is empathy!"

[NOTHING]: seven letters long, pronounced like [SILENCE]:
not a nuance to unravel, nor utterance un/spoken to linger in the air.
these rewards i reap for loving too loudly:
blooming, bountiful  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ;
self-flagellating  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .
i choke upon this  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ,
still clinging to Your _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .

the water's silent ennui:
Your punishment, Your empathy.

in a nicer world, my fury burns the love away
-- but still, it simmers. still, it stays.
You wilt like heaven's roses, exquisite in (and after) death
whilst i spoil into _ _ _ _ _ _ _  and watch the world forget.