My estranged brothers stood at my walls,
and rather than speak of our quarrels,
instead they closed their minds to reason,
and took up the heavier burden of war.

For war grinds down all in the city,
The quarrels of princes become magnified,
A slighting word from their lofty position,
tumbles down the inclined streets,

I told my brother not to go to Sparta.
And when I saw the crown in her hair
And the radiant veil on her face.
I saw the forged fruit that would destroy us.

So I pulled it from her, to cast it out,
for it was not of her doing, not of her make
the gold shimmered with a thousand chains,
and I threw it to the ground and struck it

Keep safe my jewel were the only words
my husband's brother flung at me as he dropped
a shivering and shamed woman upon my doorstep.
hope hidden under a mask of fear and pain.

And I welcomed her. Without hesitation, without doubt
For she had many things to share with me and mine.
Her stories of her youth, her child who still was held
in Sparta's endless muster lists.

I alone took the actions that needed to be done
and it was right and proper that the gods paid
me honors, bribes and flattery. For I know
that it is only the bold that is favored.

For when man speaks of Achilles, they shall always
remember the man who felled the unbeatable.
My greatness, my wit. For it was the great love herself
upon our lover's bed who granted me wisdom's virtue.

What is one son, I hear the fools cry.
What is one child for the sake of the city?
Give him up, give up his prizes,
for the Greeks have come to pillage.

It was not solely for my son's lover that the Greeks came.
And she pleaded with me for him, despite his faults.
When Great Agamemnon raised his voice for his own kin,
I understood why he would never relent.

My lovers dead or taken as secondary prizes,
And what am I given to slate my rage?
I am not to fight against those that have done me harm
instead I am to strike the enemy of my tormentor.

With shield forged for sole purpose of ensuring
that I struck deadly upon the honorable protector
And in return I would suffer no wound to still the blood
no mark of spear to end my struggle. No pain to satisfy

The Logos of Antisthenes is a series of 42 Poems set in the immediate aftermath of the Trojan war.

The poems are mostly in Free Verse. I try to stick to the Heroic Stanza format of Quatrains. However, I don't stick as closely to the rules as is traditional, and I'm perfectly fine with that. Essentially, I wanted to capture the feel of a Greek heroic epic, but with some reflections on the war I fought in.

There are three acts.

1st Act: The Muses.

The seeds of my art lie buried within the heart,
for many have declared it dead, and held funerals
mourning the great men who shall never come again;
their words carved upon unliving stone in tribute.

And so the dead prayers come. Rote, unchanging.
The cool, dry air that brings no nourishment,
to the potential bursting within the chest.
Until a spatter of inspiration comes flowing

As the world shakes and rumbles beneath the feet,
the spinning top retains its balance,
The external motion having no purchase upon
its dance, energy imparted that will be completed

and so I act the toy.
Let the cruel marvel at my motions and beat,
let my hands weave patterns they interpret
as the flap of a wing, or the flow of water.

When tyrants bloom among the dung of the city
first they strike against me and my roses
that I offer to the city freely, without demands
save that the thorns are observed and prepared for.

But the grey and wise scream against my thorns
for they shall rend the fragile hands of children
The scent is too strong, they warn, and it will lead astray
those that should revel in the smell of civilization.