Long Spartan Poems

Our lusty voice was in the tramp of narrow, winding,
     Scree-littered, deep-rutted roads;     
 Ravens, uttering guttural croaks, slow-wheeling above      
 ...

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“Women Have Loved Before As I Love Now”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past-
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by...

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I'm done with this I've had enough of this/
Slushy trip since Hell Paso son just quit
This empty pursuit
Of letting the past keep livin' through you/
Go ahead and equip the damn truth
It is that simple to...

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“The Evolution of a Broken Heart”



In thy hands, 
I gently placed it

lacking hesitation’s pleas and virtues
‘twas ne’er a time to be uncourageous
plucked somewhere from deep within
my honorable, clean gilded home where
pure intention sat regally spartan
upon...

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Umpteenth heat wave since onset of summer
sizzles Delaware Valley today July 16th, 2024

Said geographical area composed of counties
located in Southeastern Pennsylvania,
South Jersey, Delaware, and
Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Sweltering temperatures
figuratively grip human zoo
bipedal hominids (yours truly,
an olive...

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Similar if not identical to last year...   
umpteenth heat wave since onset of summer...
sizzles Delaware Valley today August 26th, 2022

Said geographical area composed of counties
located in Southeastern Pennsylvania,
South Jersey, Delaware, and
Eastern Shore of...

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Umpteenth heat wave since onset of summer...
sizzles Delaware Valley today August 25th, 2021

Said geographical area composed of counties
located in Southeastern Pennsylvania,
South Jersey, Delaware, and
Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Sweltering temperatures
figuratively grip human zoo
bipedal hominids (yours truly,
an olive...

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William Branton has just run into camp as if the earth is falling away from his heels,
he has spotted a large cluster of Indians to the south moving towards us on horseback, 
an estimated 100...

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(To the Spartan Queen) 

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra via
Mi inoltrai in una selva oscura
  
‘They drive horses down this hill’ 
She said, 
‘They take them to drink down there, that pool, there’ 
She...

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1.
Once upon a very long time in the eleventh century B.C.
There was a king in, Athens, who ruled both land and sea

2.
To all was known as king Codrus*, a mighty warrior was he 
His enemies...

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Let's dwell a tiny bit  on that  skill  most hanker after,
of mastering a language that especially enthrals,
infused with magic rhythm so fervent,
pulsing music lilt,  anthem-rich samba,
think for one ecstatic heady moment,
if...

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This dread disease that has afflicted my home, 
This malady, this plague on my house;
This making convertible the former quaintness and provincialism thereof 
Into something wholly despicable and disgustingly homogeneous,
Yclept "cosmopolitanism," and "worldliness," and "globalization,"...

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Spartan are the white walls were once hung draperies
And things papered, paneled, plastered...
Yet, 'tis so no more. 
Now all is white and wan and sickly, 
And the ghostly shadows of the accoutrements and impedimenta that...

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Achilles, The Journey To Troy, 
(Part Two) of (Part One-titled, Achilles, His Heart and Soul Were Mortal)

Achilles, The Journey To Troy

Woe! wretched horrors Olympic gods sent that day
mighty king suffered, his treasure stolen away,
power of...

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Imagine Earth itself to be just another Troy, from which, after having raged
In countless battles from Tyre to Megiddo has not been conquered, only aged
And now, having defeated the Spartan race, destroying Priam’s home
Odysseus is...

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Coulda been
the Hand of the Lying King,
if I didn’t tell the truth so much

Coulda been
Caesar’s right hand man,
if I was kill willing 
to have a shogun trigger touch

Coulda been
chief consigliore renown
for the don Corelone spiked...

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Good news came my way today February 21, 2021 courtesy late father

Papa - purportedly named
after paternal grandmother
Sadie, her mom's Yiddish name
Basia Brana (or Brandla),
she took two B letters and
found American boys' names
that kind of echoed
her...

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"What a Lark"


I used to be inspired once
like a lark beating it’s wings 
higher and ever higher into a
golden and blue eggshell sky.
Hailstones hit me 
during ascension 
and I’ve fallen
into steep decline,
lying on a pavement...

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Last night I awoke to the sign of Orion, and the big dipper pouring beauty into her
countenance.

Though the stars say she is a Capricorn, a meager goat, I see Orion’s majesty every time I
stare into...

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the great bard and Elizabethan play wright
begetting complete dramaturgy
     explaining fate hollowly airtight
succor starved, riddled smitten tattered

     sir real body politik blight
under whelming enthusiasm
   ...

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The winged god Zephyrus, handsome and graceful
gently flapped his wings, gliding across the meadows.
His eyes fell on naked youths splashing at play
in the sparkling water of a deep wide pool, sheltered  
by willow trees,...

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THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE  - A SPARTAN DEATH WISH - 480 BC


300 Spartans or hoplites , the truly heroic               ...

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Spartan Riches
                by Odin Roark

Creation asks not for center stage

How plentiful these quiet treasures
Demanding not a price
Void of glitter 
Gaff
And...

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Enea, at the Scottish Court

The critics claim that this is far the worst
of all the frescoes.  Enea the star?  No
inkling here.  Can that be James the First?

And that’s the Clyde?  It...

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written twelve years ago
when yours truly about two score 
and twelve years old,
and fishy financial fiasco
about twenty six weeks
before being scalloped
courtesy villainous fraudster
otherwise known as scam artists,
blithely, glibly, and pliantly
fleeced with shear trickery
my coveted nest...

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