Two poems

Time is becoming an issue for me, obviously, in daily terms, and in terms of my mind, which is why I didn’t post yesterday, and have only just written today’s. There are stories and stories in all that. Yesterday’s prompt poem first, then today’s.

When Time Runs Out

Sunless time in
Abandoned cobwebs,
A spiderless garden
In a grey haze,
This lifeless day.

Slabs of path
Scattered by this
Monstrous god
Of weathers,
Webs worn and torn.

Nothing left of
What was,
When time
Runs out.

R 31/10/2024 19:21

Futility

This broad blade,
Heavy instrument
Of unnecessary war,
Hovers in ellipses
And a half circle
Of indecision.

This heavy-headed spear,
Sharp extension of
A fighting arm,
Wavers in tangents
And uncertainties
Of foretold fates.

This rounded shield,
This parable of protection
And aggression, drifts
In a full cycle before
The sword strikes and twists,
The spear looses and hits.

Then futility appears,
The disillusion of all gods.

R 31/10/2024 19:27

The influence of just having read The Iliad for the first time in my grown-up life is perfectly obvious here. Perhaps reading it in my youth (or some version of it) made me so committed to peace. Who knows?