V: ό ποιητα, ἢ πῖθι ἢ ἄπιθι

I

Awake, Philosopher, rise from these words:

Unwind in this future the tangle of time,

Pitched behind pupils which shelter your mind,

A dead language spoken and once lovely sung;

What was yours only now graces all tongues.

Burrow into my heart, unearth its mantle.

Tally its hours, each stroke lights a candle;

Number its sorrows as sureties to borrow,

Spare not my marrow, fallow and frail.

Whose spirit is this, twisting here twung?

Breathe in this fire with thy mortal lung.

Circle your sigils with salted symbols loan’d,

And circles will square in this iron-red bone;

A dream kiss that lingers in copper and crimson,

A dream dew that swells under circling suns,

A bud without season, never planted yet grown,

In the sprout sprung, all things can be shown.

All centers are fire, all orbits are ice,

All points meet their center with marks imprecise

The world is spoked in words of the spoken,

Each whisper a lie of threaded truth unbroken,

Met here now in this slipping handful of tokens

Paid for the price of this thrice-worlded poem.

II

Forgive, Father, the blood of these swords:

Unbind in this suture the end of all lines,

Stitched in this present the essence divine,

Take what is dull and bless it with sharp;

Plunge this devotion into the ocean of hearts.

Shovel the grave, pack it down with wet earth,

All things tend towards the lack and the dearth;

Slumber in barrows the marrows of kings,

Spared not the gavel, hallow and hail.

Whose mind is this, thinking these thoughts?

Sleep in the mire which thy heart has wrought.

Birthed in this house, scrubbed down in raw lye,

So these tears may trace the dead with the die,

The dead kiss with fingers of copper to scry

The dead lists that swell in the crimson of lives,

An end without reason, never sought yet found,

In the shot sung, all arcs meet the ground.

No fires have ice, no winters can flame,

Son followed father, their center now framed,

The world is found in the tears that remind him,

Each moment a painting, a song or a hymn,

Met there then in the words etched in stone

Found then what lacks in the blackening moan.

III

Balance, Lover, these contraries of yours:

Shine in these eyes the ruptures of life,

Witched into worlds upon the blade of a knife;

All wagers distill down to one move unproven,

To find you again in this web-woven movement.

Dance in the night, when the music is sundered,

Count not the stars that belong to the numbers.

We find in this time the rhymes of our kind,

Spared not the sickle, those sickly or hale.

Whose voice is this, singing these songs?

Laugh with the liar whose heart sings along.

Uncross your words of their fire-forged knots,

And each will unlatch the thatches of thought:

The dread kiss that coppers balance with nought,

The dread song that cradles the crimson in crofts,

A vow without treason, never spoken yet shown,

By words of wordless wonder, such things can be grown.

All fires are embers, all ashes are white,

To find is to lose the center in flight,

The world found in threads that bind always thus,

Each fiber of moment knotted deftly in truss,

Take hand and guide as though only you and I trust,

Do what we will to balance world’s thrust.

• February 2025

Submission History

Date	Publication	Status
February 10, 2025	Enott Pratt Poetry Contest	Rejected
April 7, 2025	Paris Review	Pending