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Chris Saitta Jun 2019
Brother, our young summers held us in a long chain like the phalanx of bronzed soldiers forward flung,
And the lion was skinned and hung out to dry like the sunned-fur of the beach at Marathon.
Brother, help me to dream again.

Brother, our yellowed days shook us like serried Hoplites of an atomic age,
Shoulder to shoulder, friction rubbed, all ranks split from the fissioned-flanks.
Brother, help me to dream again.

Storm-footed Titans of heat, dust, and irradiated wind pry from a ruptured Tartarus,
The flanks are an open pulse; the scorch-song thirsts for its sea-cooling to stone.
Brother, the lion lives that wears your skull around its mane.

Brother, dream of me again, of Persian arrows and lances,
And my fallen eyes instead of yours pouring in
With a sea of lavender water and mists
And summers of once-were.
For a slide video of this and other poems, please check out my Instagram page at chrissaitta or my Tumblr page at Chris-Saitta.
maria Jun 2019
Πόλη μου μικρή, μεγάλη, φουρτουνιασμένη,
πότε με βρίσκεις στους δρόμους σου
σ'ένα παγκάκι αδειανό,
σ'ένα παλιό καράβι.
Κι άλλοτε σε δρόμους που ανεβαίνουν, σε μαγαζάκια και στροφές,
και χθες σε δρόμο που κατέβαινε και κατρακυλούσαν φύλλα, φωνές.

Πόλη μου,
πότε με χάνεις σε σκέψεις παλιές.
Σε δρόμους με ψάχνεις, μα είναι ξένοι,
παρελθοντικοί.
Και χάνεις, όλο και χάνεις.
Χάνεις και πάλι αυτή την παρτίδα,
όσο κι αν με μαγεύουν τα χάδια και τα ταξίδια,
είμαι δοσμένη αλλού.

Πόλη μου, κρύα, ζεστή, παραμυθένια,
με ζεσταίνουν οι άνθρωποι σου,
μα να πάλι, με το πρώτο κρύο
νοσταλγώ τους ανθρώπους μου.
Με ψάχνεις κι εγώ κοιτάω από την άλλη.
Ψάχνω την κλεμμένη μου καρδιά
όσο μακριά κι αν είναι,
όσο κι αν ο καιρός θρυμματίζει μνήμες,
θολώνει ματιές.
Ψάχνω.

Πόλη μου,
εσύ η αιτία.
Η αιτία του πόνου μου
κι η αιτία της χαράς μου,
ο λόγος που αγαπάω ακόμα πιο πολύ,
ο λόγος που κάθε αγκαλιά κρατάει με τους καιρούς,
-τόσο-
για να ζεσταίνει τους άχαρους χειμώνες σου.
written on Octomber 27, 2018
mariaxinari
Ken Pepiton Jun 2019
A voice. No a breeze, whirling a vibe,
ping,
signal down my left-ear hole

gap - do I follow this sprite, a whispt hiss,
this way,

come and see.
Here men invented history, the written story tell of
piles of cities on cities, where all the books was boined.

why did men do that? I listen to me ask,

ology was invented here,
ology-gnosis mist interp o'sin,
that started here, the corrosion
on the contact points between the Sybils and home-base,
Storytellers forgot the melody. The mason's lost the knack.

Written words, those froze the gods in place and
anointed the roles,
in order of importance to the common weal and woe.

--Anachron active.
There are ever resistors to restoration of the flow.
Now is part of ever, you know,
so as Three-channel-era professors seem today,
so were Oral
Storytellers from the initiate class,
doing their duty for the old school ways,
used to
make a child sacred, offer it, the sacred thing,
where
death is symbolic, the heart is taken, with the mind,

a boy or a girl is taken from all reality, and offered, as a living heart and mind,
and gut,
offered
Sacri-ficed, arti-****-of-truth-to-be made knower of things others cannot handle,

---- snake kachina dances past my per-ipher phor phun...
--- loss of focus, that's
the crime of buying what only initiated and locked-in magi
are ever allowed to know, by God, say the words written

in script captured from the scribes who came from Phoenica,
as
testified by the Sybil in throes of ecstacy, you will never know...

so, make it worth my while, the seer of such things says
to the widowed mother
whose hoplite husband fell off a cliff running from Thermopylae.

I'll get your kid in the school of the prophets, through the door
of dark and mysterious learning,
requiring a substantial League of Delphi guar-ohnteed low usery,
standard "borrower is servant to the lender", fifty years period.

--Anachron off.
Listen.
Do they have this in 2019? Timeslip. It's on Youtube, there's
a blockchain on the door, though,
nothing is sacred any more
than before.
It's time the whole story hidden where ideas ignored in idle words
have been received,
be told.
Erasmus, looks up, try this, he says.

Ha, ala Textus Receptus, Magustory of Blowhards and Slowbellies.

Some future, alls I got to say. This is some future we all imagined,

is there an option? Maybe, as in, whose may overides mine?

There is a whole story, I learn, as I wander through the ruins...

Rabbi, where do you live?
He saw me, calling from the ruins, he winked and said again,
Come and see.
Online Western Heritage Classes, while tending to the peace in my valley.
Jose Valle Jun 2019
I built a Greek column
A Tuscan column to be precise
It's about three floors in height

I used materials I didn't know I owned
Shimmering and glistening small white oval pebbles
Flat and fat ones
Sand, best of its kind
Limestone with all its magical properties
And Nautilus shells from the beaches of Callao.

I wish I have built it for looks only
But I did it for me
It fits well between my neck and naval line
For when my earthquakes threaten my core
Amanda Francis May 2019
Today, there is a storm in my head that is viscious and threatens to drown me.
Under a moonlit sky, a thousand thousand stinging insects swarm.
Locked inside Pandora's box, the weak cries of hope are fading.
And love is sleeping in the beds of death, refusing to check the time.

The change I had to cross the river Styx has been misplaced, nor could I drink the amnesic gold of the River Lethe.
In limbo, I must think of you obsessively.
Your divine beauty, your quicksilver song, the distance that remained between us.
Chris Saitta May 2019
Blow, Lyceum grasses, blow,
From coiled lips of your wolf-god Apollo
Whose dawn-padded paws to starprints roam
This temple-tribute to thought-illumined roads.  

Blow, Lyceum grasses, blow
Of wave upon wave of your brushings-by,
From staff to sandal-fall to cloak hemline,
For rhapsodes, your song-odyssey to sew.

The Greeks built the sun,
Upon scaffolding~acrobaticon~  
With pear-skinned lightness to glow,
Or like leavened bread from the woodburning stove.

Blow, Lyceum grasses, blow,
The sun lies old on its famine-cracked pillow,
In spittle of gold and yellowed phosphorous,
With the gods past-blown to ruin.
The Lyceum, known for Aristotle’s peripatetic school (or walking school of thought), served as a temple dedicated to Apollo, who has been known as the God of Light, Poetry, and Wolves, among many other things.  “Rhapsodes” were verse singers, or stitched-song singers, in the Lyceum and Ancient Greece.  Scholars believe Homer’s works were sung this way.
vern Jun 2019
discord and strife stood before me
with hollow cheeks, ivory skin, and luminous hair
a knife in her hand
a pen in the other
pick your poison she told me; stir some trouble
from her piercing gaze and wicked smirk I knew
she offered me, a pawn for her games, a decision
however, I had no power to chose at all
so I reached my hand, feeling the weight of my choice
the chaos
and the destruction I would cause.
What would you chose?
The pen refers to emotions, and the knife refers to actions.
Part two will come someday.
Hailey Apr 2019
Delphi
An oracle
In which only Apollo
God of the sun
Of poetry
Of medicine
Of archery
Of honesty
Of the muses
And of the oracles
Only he yielded the keys
Forged of golden Ichor and tears
Casted into the plated nook of Hades armor
And cooled in the deepest reaches of the seas and the highest high of the heavens
That gave way to the oracles heart
And perhaps she loved him
He who was as warm as the sunlight which kissed lovingly on her skin
He who could breathe not one lie, but rather spoke the truth with a voice soft
He who sang merrily through halls and merry met ears who pondered in to listen

Yes, perhaps she loved him.
Perhaps that is why she took him by his hand
And murmured words sacred
As she passed the key to him
Unneeding to utter what she wanted
He already knew

Perhaps that is why she stayed behind
Watching as others loved him as she did
But never the same
Perhaos because she knew she couldn't have him
So the best she could do
Was give him her heart
And hope he would cherish it
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