Sappho's

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ex 

plosive 

               frag 

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meant 

to 

be

 

[ ] [ ] [ ] 

 

loving[ly] ex 

 

[pli-] 

[ca-] 

[ted] 

 

[ ] [ ] [ ] 

 

[from?] 

 

[dia] [pha] [nous]

 

pleats

in 

her 

enamored

 

[memory?] [now]

 

[ ] [ ] [ ] 

[ ] [ ] [ ] 

 

by ravenous moths torn 

 

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[ ] [ ] [ ] 

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to shreds.

 

A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose Tattoo

 

Get that thorn off 

Your chest—what 

 

The indifferent eye fails 

To take in, the still willing 

 

Anxious heart torn in two will, 

And all those now too timid 

 

To reveal it shall soon be 

Wearing it on 

 

Their bloody sleeves, too. 

 

 

 

Another Holy Mountain, Believe It Or Not

This time 

It’s Zeus’s so-called ladder- 

Like Mt Ithome that climbs 

 

To where the air is still 

Alive they say with spirits 

Of the undying 

 

Ancients that have 

Yet to exhaust that one 

Last precious breath needed

 

To ascend there. 

 

 

 

 

 

Humor Me This Mellow Melancholy Idyll

 

What if 

I told you those blooming 

 

Little yellow croci 

By the side 

 

Of the narrow path leading 

To the cramped white 

 

Chapel on the top 

Of the hill overlooking 

 

My dying birth village took me back 

To a song of my lost youth, 

 

Would you go along with me? 

 

 

 

 

 

Critical Poetic License

Happily ever after, 

Do not write as if 

 

Your life’s a third-rate novel 

Where you end up 

 

Reading a biography 

You could’ve lived without. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memo Writ To A Fare-Thee-Well

Don’t forget— 

No matter what you do, how 

You do it will always come back 

To let you know how you did. 

 

 

 

A Poem Should Be (22)

Lightheaded but not 

At all incongruous— 

Like a grotesque

 

Metallic bird lunging head- 

Long into the sound 

Barrier banging against 

 

Your tin ear till 

You can hear yourself 

Heading for another universe 

 

Eons 

Of light 

Years away.