"gladius" poems
(for Nietzche, who cowers behind art.)
The world calls the conquered ******
to remember that the sun every night yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise
when there is no guarantee, no promise, no sure thing.
Yet still it yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise.
The world called Canaanites ******
while they traded and toiled along the shores
of land promised to the aged heretic of Sumer,
whose wife could give only love.
The world called Hebrews ******
while they raised Pharoah tombs
Provided respite from the eastern chariots
Stubborn in refusal of the living gods
Drinking only Eloheim's bitter grape
That provides brief respite from his decrees
When delving deep in one's cups.
The world called Britons ******
When flogged Boudicea fought and fought and finally fell
To Roman spear and gladius
When Angles and Saxons raided then stayed
When Cromwell climbed the pale cliffs
The world called the Iberians, Gauls and Teutons ******
when Caesar crossed the Rubicon
Pax Romana for Citizens born
Land for the wealthy, voting rights too
Taxes and tithes from their toil.
The world called the Khoikhoi of South Africa ******
From the VOC to fatal Apartheid
Up rose a man
The heart of the land
A man named Nelson Mandela.
The world called the Viet Minh ******
from Can Vong to Dien Bien Phu
'till they slogged howitzers above
to reign Napoleonic terror below.
And to them it was just
The American War
After the world called them
Vietnamese.
The world calls the conquered ******
to remember that the sun every day yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise
When there is no guarantee, no promise, no sure thing
yet still it yearns
to rise, to rise, to rise
'though it never watches its own rising
undoing raiment of fading embers
swimming naked in the royal blue
bathing all with daily newborn naked glory
chasing the celestial tidal tease
that seems to wander where it please
reminding that all are born free
but can grow into ignorance
and be called ******
Seek truths
that hold in unity;
that provide nourishment
beneath the lash
allowing one
to rise, to rise, to rise.
Jul 15, 2019
Jul 15, 2019 at 9:01 AM UTC
so the day is going well
which is never a good sign
time ticking past somnambulantly
inducing a soporific state
I find hard to shake
with rocking carriages
as I traverse to my travail
through millennia of archaeology
passing long extinct dinosaurs
turning magically to crude oil
Roman armies with Gladius drawn
ready for action two thousand
years on, still trying to conquer
the unconquerable realm
then an eco-warrior
of shabby description
yells my carbon footprint
is an abominable ********
it’s an electric train I holler
how much greener can I be fella
the Romans are looking friendlier
by the minute they only wanted
my freedom not justification of existence
the soporific state abates
the modern world is against me
now I’m running late
Mar 23, 2022
Mar 23, 2022 at 7:14 PM UTC
Many words, so many words, are passing through this place.
Broken latin, mesonic virtues, old english lymricks,
ancient jewish pronuciation fliting phenomenal prosody.
Life as all the proper words begin to shape this grandly
generous thought of commendation. Roots, roods, rudentary
lauded buy more spies. The plura, fauna, Jane Does and Rae Me's,
fosil laute... prose.
En angle', in english, Angles and Jutes, as the rapier, pugio gladius,
a bloodless synopsis, a canon, feathered conical lye.
Sui-hsing chide us naught for German and German's is to Chinese is Tzun Zoo Choo Yen see. Their angels roll away stones, here men open doors, women pointe out stars to fight the bold, Oui Ye.
Write two poems at once, or lie. Write three poems at once, or lie.
Oh, yea we write three...
poethree. Oui Ye, Oye yea, O thee poets... we right thee.
Austerity, Whiterby, Bastoniwa,... Red Socks and resident bee.
Add comments, if Any.
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 1:00 AM UTC
I had held myself as a greater man,
A soldier aloof from the whims of life.
The only things I cared for were the gladius in my hand
The screams of my enemies
As their blood dripped from my blade
And they lay clawing at my feet.
I went ******* with the boys
Played with them games of dice
Laughed at their jokes.
It was all lip service.
I did not care for their ways,
The ways of lesser men.
I was a soldier whose only lust was for blood.
I was better.
The new recruits came
With their beardless faces.
They huddled together for comfort,
Some cried to their mothers
Others prayed.
Those simpering wrecks were of no interest
Except for one
Erasmos.
With the stature of a god
The confidence of a titan
He stood amongst his peers
As a man stands amongst children.
It was not long until we sparred.
As good soldiers there was no need for words.
We both knew what was obvious
What was as certain as life and death
We were brothers in arms
Of the same breed
We were as one.
The fight came.
Outnumbered ten to one
We fought
Until blood soaked our faces
Our enemies and our own
Until crimson flooded our eyes
Our noses
Our mouths.
Before night fell we were the only two left
Alone in a field full of ravenous beasts
Of coprses waiting for the crows
Left to rot in some far flung land.
Their gaping snouts salivated
Waiting for the chance to sink their blades into our flesh.
A new emotion filled my veins.
I was no longer fighting for myself
To satisfy my lust for death
But for my kin standing next to me
The god made flesh
It was as we stood back to back
As I felt him stand firm against Fortuna’s whims
That I knew I was finally what I claimed to be
For Erasmos
My love
Has made me a greater man.
May 25, 2017
May 25, 2017 at 12:12 AM UTC
A sagging Gladius wallows inside me, limply,
It's rotting in its own wretched flaccidity,
I see others around me nurturing bounds of fruitful irises,
Some even mother sycamore, burgeoning with vigour, effortless as chaste kisses,
Tender fertilizer blots my chin in a bloodied marling,
I ingest the stolen soil, even when I feel the white sting of my innards' snarling,
So I'll inject myself with litres upon litres of putrid compost,
Only for my gladius to continuing shrivelling within my innermost,
It's stem-deep in nutrients, and is none the less decayed,
Atop the valley, even in the passing June, it stays, wilted withered and frayed,
Now, all I'm left with is the curdle of wetland moss festering in my blood,
Weighted with this fetidity, I let my gladius go, dead, in peace and clotted mud.
Dec 17, 2024
Dec 17, 2024 at 2:51 PM UTC
Rows of rogue gladiators
Recaptured and crucified.
Muscles, grit and warriorship
Beyond that of any centurion,
Humbled, humiliated, spat upon
By the wine-greased gears of a
Machine the size of seized continents
And cultures crushed to crumbs
Within weeks -not centuries.
The stuff of contemporary tales and
Future feature films. Justice -not
Unlike poetry- is a purely man-made
Concept. But so very unlike the
Other; as frail in its mortality as
Man's own justless Self.
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 2:54 PM UTC
It’s a taste on the tongue like peppermint
As invasive on the sinuses as mothballs,
It’s the precision of a samurai sword across a palm,
With the brutality of a gladius twisting against ribs
More infectious than the black death,
And no cure to stop.
GL HF my friend,
For we are all claimed by something,
And one by it every forty seconds.
It’s a pain in the mind, you see.
Jun 6, 2021
Jun 6, 2021 at 6:13 PM UTC
Rachel, Weeping for Our Children
From an idea suggested by Kelly
No soldiers come, with glaring eyes, with death
To drag our children out into the road
To ****** away their lives into the dust
With pilum, gladius, or manly fist
With Romans as advisors standing by
Amid obscenities, curses, and screams
A fog of witness for that old excuse:
It’s all about the quality of life
Confusion now persuades with soft, soft breath
And therapists come, soothingly, with death.
Dec 28, 2016
Dec 28, 2016 at 7:42 AM UTC
Rachel, Weeping for Our Children
From an idea suggested by Kelly Rogers
No soldiers come, with glaring eyes, with death
To drag our children out into the road
To ****** away their lives into the dust
With pilum, gladius, or manly fist
No Romans as advisors standing by
Amid obscenities, curses, and screams
A fog of witness for that old excuse:
It’s all about the quality of life
Confusion now persuades with soft, soft breath
And therapists come, soothingly, with death.
Dec 28, 2017
Dec 28, 2017 at 2:37 PM UTC
geldin mi. dedi rüzgar
yelesi’nden kavrayıp kır atı
meçhule kanama bu ihtirasların
ilişme. dedi bulut
biraz nefes alsın
biter geri dönünce
çekilir damardan
nevrotik ızdırapları
bir damla bıraktı yağmur
terli dudaklarına
gülüyordu miğferine şimşek
iniverdi yere
baktı yüzüne Sezar’ın
gördün mü. dedi
yeşiller al’a döndü sen gelince
ne kadar üzgün Alesia
duymuyordu Galia fatihi
sürdü atı o hızla
görmüş gibi Getorix’i
parlayan gladius’unda
dur! dedi ölüm
bu kadar kafi
yeter bastığın Zile
geldin
gördün
yendin
oysa
hançer kadar kısa hayat
hançere’nde bileylediğin
Memory of Julius Gaius Caesar..
Mar 25, 2020
Mar 25, 2020 at 11:37 PM UTC