"thermopylae" poems
Love, the world
Suddenly turns, turns color. The streetlight
Splits through the rat's tail
Pods of the laburnum at nine in the morning.
It is the Arctic,
This little black
Circle, with its tawn silk grasses - babies hair.
There is a green in the air,
Soft, delectable.
It cushions me lovingly.
I am flushed and warm.
I think I may be enormous,
I am so stupidly happy,
My Wellingtons
Squelching and squelching through the beautiful red.
This is my property.
Two times a day
I pace it, sniffing
The barbarous holly with its viridian
Scallops, pure iron,
And the wall of the odd corpses.
I love them.
I love them like history.
The apples are golden,
Imagine it ----
My seventy trees
Holding their gold-ruddy *****
In a thick gray death-soup,
Their million
Gold leaves metal and breathless.
O love, O celibate.
Nobody but me
Walks the waist high wet.
The irreplaceable
Golds bleed and deepen, the mouths of Thermopylae.
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Honor to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they're rich, and when they're poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.
And even more honor is due to them
when they foresee (as many do foresee)
that Ephialtis will turn up in the end,
that the Medes will break through after all.
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Another Thermopylae to defend.
Our love's a battle we can't win.
And so I'll die a Spartan's death,
You'll leave me with out any breath.
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 10:38 PM UTC
In the year 480 B.C., King Leonidas of Sparta lead 300 Spartan soldiers to the mountain pass of Thermopylae. They came face to face with over 200,000 Persians under King Xerxes of the great Persian Empire,
whose archers so multiple, their arrows blocked out the sun.
Bravely the Spartans fought, with no thought of surrender.
After three days of brutal fighting, tens of thousands of Persians lay dead,
yet the Spartans still remain. Then a local resident becomes a traitor, revealing to the Persians a mountain path that lead behind Greek lines. Surrounded, Leonidas sends Greek soldiers back to Sparta to tell of a great victory, that he knew would never be. Valiantly the Spartans stand by their king, and fight to the death. So today, even though the Greeks lost the battle, it is better known for the bravery of a Spartan king and his 300 soldiers.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 12:18 PM UTC
The battle was imminent.
The forces were joined.
No longer was time standing idle.
Outnumber and ******
by 100 to 1,
the Spartans stood fervid and vital.
The Greeks were united,
though the Spartans alone
were the ones charged with their protection.
At Thermopylae pass,
300 men stood
together in imperfect perfection.
"Surrender your arms"
King Xerxes demanded,
"Surrender, and let the Persians betake them."
Leonidas replied "Molon Labe!" my foe,
"If you want them, then you come and take them."
Jun 10, 2016
Jun 10, 2016 at 8:45 AM UTC
Historically this history is my Thucydides,
And when I need that leadership, where is my Pericles.
Philosophies are just to please all my Aristocles,
And when I need a lover, where are my Persephones.
A thousand hordes with blazing swords descend to vanquish me,
I sit and pray that this today's not my Thermopylae.
The gateways hot, they say that's not the way it's meant to be,
So Ill just float here in my boat in my Aeagean Sea
Dec 10, 2010
Dec 10, 2010 at 5:58 PM UTC
1554
“Go tell it”—What a Message—
To whom—is specified—
Not murmur—not endearment—
But simply—we—obeyed—
Obeyed—a Lure—a Longing?
Oh Nature—none of this—
To Law—said sweet Thermopylae
I give my dying Kiss—
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God made me into a marionette
He pulled me from the dust
He scooped me out of coals.
He breathed life into my belly
and now they call me animated earth.
He carved my bones from alabaster stones
long buried under piles of pine needles and leaves
He sang songs of Light and Life
and put them in my ears
and taught me all the words
and cut me silver keys.
now i stand up tall
like the Lighthouse of Alexandria
or the Colossus of Rhodes
i take showers under jungle waterfalls
full of orchid petals
and with angel fish climbing up the rock walls.
my head and all my limbs are hanging by
golden silken strings and threads
and where I walk the moss and lichens grow.
He fashioned my eyes from glass
blown over the hot geysers
and sulfur springs
of thermopylae
and the salt basin dunes.
He plucked my pupils from the pregnant blackness
of the Void.
He struck them over steel and flint
and the sparks made it bright enough to see.
my heart is a time-piece
keeping minutes with its beats
like a great shadow cast behind a sphere.
the elements once kept me apart from me my identity,
I was a hungry ghost
walking around town like a hypodermic voodoo doll.
everytime I turned around
I tripped over another basket full of rattlesnakes
hissing from both ends.
I gave up and crossed my heart
and gave it over to the chemical egregore
hoping I would die while somehow staying alive
and learning how to fly away home-
so i could leave all the piles of ashes and teeth alone
and maybe plant a rose garden.
but God made of me a marionette
strung me up from strings of silken gold.
He breathes for me,
and dances me to the music of the spheres
and now the whole planet is a
Hanging Garden of the Fallen Babylon
and now I keep snakes
as exotic pets
and as company
when i’m lonely
and for afternoon tea.
May 21, 2022
May 21, 2022 at 5:16 PM UTC
There was an old man of Thermopylae,
Who never did anything propersly;
But they said, 'If you choose,
To boil eggs in your shoes,
You shall never remain in Thermopylae.
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Gods walk among the mortals this day
Ares, our lord, broke his chains
The spirit of war marches against us
But he trained his children well
His sons too walk the fields
My brothers and I hear their whispers
And their promises are true, but alas
We have spoken at length before
Thanos and Hermes are about
I expect to meet their master soon
Nix has taken early claim today
Have we angered the Twins?
Perhaps, and so I pray
The crippled god takes pity and hold us
At least ‘till now his works have held
Their clash sounds Eris’ laughter
Black clouds and savage tides break
Upon walls and stakes of bronze
Sick and stagnant the flesh lies
(The carrion birds do not like the shade)
Watered by barbarian’s red ichor
But we too bleed – I swear it flows gold!
Brother after brother kneels, cloaks re-dyed
And we step forth, walls remade again
Soon my shield will be used to patch
And then – How should Minos judge?
What warrior could take Elysium?
No, I have spilt too much blood
Asphodel? An eternity in the dark…
It could well be the Pit, behind bronze walls
An irony of fate, and perhaps appropriate
In truth, I yearn for the Lethe…
A break in the wall, a brother fallen
I offer forth my spear, then patch it
Around me, iron faces, beyond pain
Beyond fear, our backs to our families
Bearing the scars of our devotion
They did not break us, but forged us
So come, bring Hell’s fires
A good death is its own reward
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 8:37 PM UTC
"I have seen the night torn into thin darkling strips and woven into shapes too bleak for dreams."
For some unknown reason
This sentence speaks worlds
To me
Deep within my "soul"
You could call it
I feel it
Like a distant memory
Something long forgotten
But still itching to come up
For air
To be thought of again
Like we have scaled
The walls of Thermopylae
Or Constantinople
Through the darkness
Taking no prisoners
But lives instead
We have fought in battles
That would make today's wars
Pale at the bloodshed
Perhaps this is why
I feel so peaceful now
At ease with most things
I did my killing
Served my time
Saw enough bodies
Perhaps this is also why
I know exactly what to do
In almost all situations that
Hold violence
So let's put this to rest
Perhaps these are demons
But not memories
Past lives perhaps?
Or just my imagination.
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 1:18 AM UTC
gathered the storms,
and gathered the winds
of undying suffering.
sufferings of pleasure,
psychedelics of exalted warmth
stalked and stumbled
around the planetary man;
the dying and the undying
the man and the un-man
both together excited to the darkest night.
who lost is unknown to me;
the wall blears the boundary.
unfixed the shape,
darkness deepens the dancing dolphins;
sanity swirls,
words skip the stray lips
as if forgotten bones collapse and crumble.
seaming with flabby fragments
the mouth of Thermopylae.
drawing a stick out of spillikins.
there remains the tongue-tied taciturn;
as if dead and done to bones.
Nov 17, 2019
Nov 17, 2019 at 2:23 PM UTC
Betwixt rock and sea,
Three Hundred haunting poems
And one melody.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 10:52 PM UTC
When the last page turns
Will I go down like Leonidas
or Stede Bonnet?
Will I make my stand in thermopylae
or the gallows?
May 29, 2019
May 29, 2019 at 4:40 AM UTC