Runner up Poetry

As a form of expression, poetry can be quite liberating.  It focuses words to a fine needle point, it's a way of saying so much in so few words.  Last month the Writer's Talkback one word challenge allowed me to indulge in my fascination with the classical past.  I've harboured an obsession with Greek literature, mythology and geography since childhood, and the more I learn, the more I want to know.  I've travelled around Greece to follow this obsession...I now have a growing collection of classical art and Greek statues of the great and good.

'Beloved' feeds from such fascination.  Walking in the footsteps of the ancients is no mean feat. Take a spoonful of truth and add a pinch of literary licence, and you have something that might be wonderful. This poem is one of my favourites and was runner up in the competition.


Beloved

On fairest ground, the golden wheat,
Danced like breezy Nymphs,
Drunk on sweet smelling dew,
Lithe shadows beneath Malian hills,
They shifted.

Across the sky, a darkened scar,
Belied a stillness; fires still lingered,
The sinewy tendrils pointed,
To forge a path inked by blood,
They resisted.

Delicate whispers laced the air,
Spoken soft and childlike in my ear,
But echoes remained like stains,
The hissy tussle of men and bronze,
They persisted.

Scattered grains of dirt, ground down,
Made heavy through clammy tumult,
A river of men clasped and clawed,
Against parched, hardened skin,
They pressed.

On fairest ground, the morning sunlight,
Marched across cold, hilly flesh,
Torn, twisted and tattered trails,
Sheathed in glorious red,
They lost.

A subtle rumble; the shift of power,
An endless breath filled the plains,
Etched in wind blasted stones,
And sun dried tears,
They remained.

“Stranger, announce to the Spartans,
That here we lie,
Having fulfilled their orders”,
These beloved, of Kings and men,
We remembered.