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    AC Benus
  • AC Benus
  • Author
  • 02/04/2021
  • 236 Words
  • 427 Views
  • 2 Comments
Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

One Hundred and Fifty-Five Sonnets - 74. vows of the 300

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Sonnet No. 147

 

Weeds grow between the stones; the sun burns hot;

So watch your footing as we scale the mount,

For up here, the sea is in earshot,

And the glories of Greece under us we’ll count.

To the tomb of Iolaus, outside Thebes,

I have taken you like ancient men did,

To marry in the name of Hercules,

On his husband’s grave, there-joined by Cupid.

For that lad to his man was charioteer,

And three hundred Sacred Band partners too –

Each a warrior couple – married here,

Pledging to die, and live, as one man through.

So on the grassy stones, let’s links our hands –

And fulfill our vow as ancient rite demands.

   

 

Sonnet No. 148

 

Emotions jostle the road like judgments,

To form a pack of wheeled carts there pushing

Ruts ever deeper in worn resentments;

Where none but accusations go whooshing.

Yet, calmly within the tumult’s jarring,

The source of my best inspiration comes,

With gentle grasp, and on his finger, a ring –

And in whose touch, my mute questions, he numbs.

Knowing we are but one man can settle

The disquiet of my rough intellect,

For absolving through Love has greater mettle

Than my self-damning torment can subject.

Reach to me this morning, and caress my cheek;

Your love has all the comfort I’ll ever seek.

 

 

_    

Copyright © 2018 AC Benus; All Rights Reserved.
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Parker Owens

Number 147 made me re-read and re-re-read it. I loved it for what it says about the commitment and equality of all love. The images it calls to mind - rough stone, azure sea, wheeling shorebirds, salt air, the touch and heat of one's lover - all these combine to draw me back and back again.

Number 148 made me think of ancient roadways, paved of hard stone, yet deeply grooved with the wheels of half a millennium's wagons and chariots. And I can imagine how, so many centuries ago, the caress of one's beloved amidst the sensory clamor of the market road would center and ground the poet. It's exquisite.

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AC Benus
On 2/4/2021 at 11:02 AM, Parker Owens said:

Number 147 made me re-read and re-re-read it. I loved it for what it says about the commitment and equality of all love. The images it calls to mind - rough stone, azure sea, wheeling shorebirds, salt air, the touch and heat of one's lover - all these combine to draw me back and back again.

Number 148 made me think of ancient roadways, paved of hard stone, yet deeply grooved with the wheels of half a millennium's wagons and chariots. And I can imagine how, so many centuries ago, the caress of one's beloved amidst the sensory clamor of the market road would center and ground the poet. It's exquisite.

Thank you, Parker. No. 147 is one of these Sonnets most deeply etched in my mind. It seems a bit jerky to me reading it here and now, this June morning of 2022, but the images are -- just as you said -- sharp and clear.

Thank you once again for all you do for me

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