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Key ingredients for Anthesteria
In the territory of Herakleia grows the aconite, transplanted there by Ionian colonists driven from their homes by Lydian stosstruppen and horse. They brought with them their ancestral cult of Athene...
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From both flow dark wisdom
On his phalanges was tattooed HATE and LOVE, an unconscious Empedoklean reflex repeating in the polar symbols that wound their way up his forearms. His fingers were long and nervous, like a dove...
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Disregard for Consequences
If only Jacob the warrior-scholar had known Syriac he would have heard the head of Rashīd ad-Dīn Sānnin proclaim, “You are focused on the two beneath the mountain, but there is a third, whom no man has...
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Charisma
They say that Alexander caught the pox in Ktesiphon, or maybe it was Levantine malaria or aconite tea, sent by his beloved but estranged tutor Aristotle, wroth over the murder of his slow nephew;...
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Killer Instincts
At the funeral games of Hephaistion the blessed, Sandīpanī the naked sage from the East delivered a eulogy that was downright Orphic. Indeed, Mendikos the Olbian found more than a passing similarity...
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And myriad other madnesses
The Girl stepped through the woods into a clearing occupied by a Knight in armor white as the moon with a long black cross that had flared arms and feet all down his front. His steed was loaded like a...
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If it was easy everyone would do it
The Girl with green hair danced topless, proud of the scars that had made her who she was. Her Bacchic brethren and sisters played hand-drums and clackers for her as she tossed her head back and spun...
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Unveiling
Only 11 poems left to go and this Starry Bull Dionysiaka will have reached its end. What’s going to happen? Who will survive? Who won’t? When do we learn the meaning of the green glowing duck?...
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Know this well
Dionysos sat with his back against the old oak tree under which Zeus presented Chthonie with a veil on which was broidered a map of the World, a sceper that once had belonged to black-winged Night, and...
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Ooops! Missed one!
Now it’s 11; sequentially, this poem fits in between Disregard for Consequences and Charisma. Artemisia of Themyskira was more wolf than woman as she tore through the Borysthene line, her axe (a gift...
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Adversity reveals who you are
Tall pine trees blotted out the sun and the snow was packed high and thick all around and the earth below was hard and unforgiving, like the wind that bit and burned, even through all the skins and...
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Many Enemies Bring Much Honor
There was a boy, who was no boy at all. He was handsome and gay-hearted and his smile warmed everyone and made the spring flowers come up. He loved to dance and to sing, and others loved it too for his...
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And the Black Sun is Rising
The bats shrieked as they fled the cavernous dark driven out by the torches and eerie chants of the ash-faced acolytes of the Mountain Mother, carrying bronze shields in her clashing dance. At their...
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Choose wisely
There’s blood in the valley, it’s up to their knees. The harvest has come early, and everyone’s got dues to pay. Do you feel that hot wind blowing? Everyone’s aggrieved, and want to get one over on...
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And remain forever
Pythagoras and Zalmoxis were enjoying a celebratory repast on the occasion of the latter’s manumission when Zalmoxis threw his hands up and said, “Master, I don’t know that I can do what you ask of me....
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True to your Daimon
I faced myself in the monster’s own lair after a long and winding journey and many arduous ordeals to get there. He was tall and beautiful, strong and confident, everything I hoped to be, and he smiled...
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That none can stay you or say you nay
The cage is gold, with baroque filigree and rhomboid diamonds interspersed with wheels. The white dove swings and tries to forget that once she had tasted freedom and felt the breeze and sun on her...
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You are free and mighty
“You are not small and weak!” Shouted Miriam Webb at the demonstration. “Stop identifying with a victim mentality. You’re here. That’s something worth celebrating! It means, against all odds and...
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Join us and cry
“You ready for this?” Herakles emptied his cup, wiped the wine from his beard, and said, “I was born ready.” “There’s no one I’d rather have at my side for the end of all things, brother, than you.”...
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Warriors, come out and play!
Nonnos sat bolt upright in bed, and made the sign of the Cross over his chest. He scanned his small cell, still dark with hours to go until sunrise, the familiar surroundings helping reorient him and...
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