The pipes and women wail and skirl,
deaths following the flowering girl.
Ancient tales of love and war
show costs of dimple or a curl.
Tamil spear tips illustrate
intent before the towering gate;
bangles slide on her young wrists;
kings make war when made to wait.
Gods and goddesses choose sides:
a Trojan steals a youthful bride.
Who Trojans were we’ll never know –
Greeks burn the city, once inside.
A lovely face, a swelling bust –
and treasure, fame – inspired by lust
kings storm the ramparts, steal the girl,
before, like all, they turn to dust.
*****
This poem was inspired by a blog post in ‘Horace & friends’ on ‘Doing without consolation – Tamil poetry, Yeats and Simone Weil‘. The author, Victoria, touches on a lot more topics than my small piece does; visit her blog to see how Yeats’ “Like a long-legged fly upon the stream / Her mind moves upon silence” connects to ancient Tamil as well as ancient Greek poetry…
My poem here is in iambic tetrameter (with some liberties taken), rhyming AABA in English ruba’i form. It was published in the current (August 2024) Snakeskin, issue 320.
Illustration: The Fall of Troy by Johann Georg Trautmann (1713–1769)
Form in Formless Times 