Best Aeschylus Poems
A few of my favorite things
A few of my favorite things
Looking at paintings of Cezanne Rembrandt Van Gogh and Rodin
thinking of their lives and of their times
of where and when they painted
of why and of who they where with
These are a few of my favorite things
Listening to music of Coplan’s Appalachian spring
Beethoven’s ninth symphony jazz of miles monk colt rain
songs of Dylan chimes of freedom and blowing in the wind
These are a few of my favorite things
Thinking of the past
when Robert Kennedy touched a small black Childs face with a tender
hand and asked if he had eaten that day
and of his speech when he told the crowd king had died and quoted the Greek poet
Aeschylus
even in our sleep pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until in our own despair
against our will comes wisdom
through the grace of god
When Joan Baez in Sarajevo during the surge in bullet proof vest
changed places with a street musician Vedran Smailovic who plays a cello in
the public square she takes his place and sings amazing grace
When jimmy carter befriends a little boy Mattie J.T. Stepanek who wrote poetry of just peace and a message of hope in his short time of life
Of the first responders who went fearless into the falling towers to save lives
These are a few of my favorite things
When in the wilderness and mountains peaks or lakes and rivers
seeing wildlife in their habitats amongst the swarms of morphing swallows and sunbeams and rainbows the quite springs and moving tides
and gulls in their nests
These are a few of my favorite things
Sitting in a café with a friend or a quiet walk along the shore
talking about books and ideas of the day
of feelings experiences and such things
of creating something of beauty to share with others
These are a few of my favorite things
Erato whispered in Man’s ears
poetic words that he could hear;
they are ancient as Greece itself
which became Man’s only real wealth.
Aeschylus heard her wordy waves
that sparked his tragedian plays.
Her soft words waft Man’s atmosphere
producing a William Shakespeare.
Today her words still ride the wind
murmur in the ears that listen
by few of the plurality
who pen or type their poetry.
Her words have yet to reach my ears
I’ll write in silence I can hear.
Oh, ancient Greece,
How much you have filled my soul.
The aesthetics of your kind,
Are more than satisfied
By your beautiful eyes.
The epics of grace,
Odysseus and Helen’s sublime face.
The war between two cities,
And a tale of returning to beauty.
The dialectic of Socrates trial,
The Christ before Christ on clouds much higher.
The dialogues devoted to supreme justice,
By Plato’s divine universals.
Aristotle’s poetics devoted to the epics,
And particulars brought by the golden ethical’s.
Sappho and her poetry,
Herodotus and a tale of histories.
The land of marble devoted to democracy,
The Spartan grandeur and Athenian cultured society.
The Oedipus complex brought to Sophocles.
Vengeful acts by Media for adultery.
I sing joy to all the tragedies,
Aeschylus and the dance of the Eumenides.
The Minoan society and the island of Crete,
Greek culture and so much to keep.
Athena the bright eyed goddess of wisdom,
Came of Zeus, our lord of Jupiter.
Juno and her rivals in the kingdom,
Brought us tales of jealousy for the future.
The pre-Socratics of philosophy,
Thales, Heracleitus, and Anaximenes.
The golden verses of Pythagoras,
And the sophist named Protagoras.
Aristotle’s pupil brought grandeur to the dream,
Alexander the great extended the means.
The logic, the literature, and the home of philosophy,
Mythology, and the tragedies, histories of epic poetry.
The things that have been and will always be,
I will always remember the glory that was Greece.
Sleep our glorious ancestors, sleep!
Do not be disturbed.
We,
your descendants would never betray
The blood you have shed to liberate
Our land.
The Land of:
Homer and Hesiod
Aeschylus and Euripides
Socrates and Plato
Hypocrates and Alexander
For
We would never let another enemy,
No matter how powerful,
To invade our holy motherland-
The birthplace:
Of Philosophy
Of Democracy,
Of Tragedy, and
Of the Olympic Games.
Sleep you, immortal heroes of freedom, sleep!
Let your blessed souls roam onto the Elysian fields, and
Let yourselves enjoy the company of our
Forbears:
Of Hercules,
Of Achilles
Of Odysseus, and
Of Agamemnon
For
We stay vigilant guards instead of you
Ready to safeguard the values and ideals
For which you have fallen.
Ready to follow your footsteps, and
Ready to die for our land: Greece
Which
You have liberated after four hundred years of
Insufferable and tyrannical occupation.*
©Demetrios Trifiatis
25 March 2021
*The Ottomans captured Constantinople (Istanbul), which was
the capital of the Byzantine empire for eleven centuries, on the
29th of May 1453. Greece remained enslaved till the 25th of
March 1821, when we Greeks revolted against the oppressors' tyranny and after a long war, we managed to liberate ourselves!
Long live Freedom. Long Live Greece!
The gods’ privilege is never to die,
the men’s tragedy is most die
at some point in time of their life’s cycle.
The gods’ tragedy is gods can never die,
the men’s privilege is to die when time comes.
Because of her beauty and a handful of dust she held in her palm
she won god’s favor and was granted the privilege to live forever,
nonetheless, it turned into misery to suffer forever,
she,(1) therefore, wrote on a golden leaf, “I want to die.”
The wish of a crafty king,(2) who is to roll a rock to the top of hill
over and over under god’s harsh punishment, is to let the rock down and die rather than to undergo eternal life’s never ending toil.
The agony of the god who descended to the earth,
because he wanted to share the warmth of the bonfire(3)
kept exclusively for gods to sit encircle it and enjoy,
with the men he love was he couldn’t die.
Whether it’s right or wrong, because he stole the fire,
he is chained to a rock at the mountain standing in the edge
of the world, incurring the ridicule of an ill-bred god(4)
who frequently comes in and out the thieves’ den
to plot together another theft from another victim they chose.
His liver is pecked by a fierce eagle every morning;
hence it would be better for him not to see the ever renewing
sun rise from other side of the mountain.
Although it’s miserable to suffer forever
because he cannot die, it’s far worse to see men’s betrayal.
Ungrateful men’s avarice, instead of co-existence in peace
they kill each other, oppress weak to hold power,
use the fire as the weapon of massacre.
Every morning with renewing sun
he has to endure worsening pain though,
he won’t understand what the desperate mean,
because he is a god.
Although he may able to bear excruciating pain,
he couldn’t endure men’s betrayal.
The mountain collapses, the chain breaks off.(5)
1. Cummaean Sibyl. 2. Sisyphus. 3. Prometheus. 4. Hermes. 5. Aeschylus. tr. Mueller, Carl R. Prometheus bound, last line (Pandemonium. The mountain collapses.) q.v. Bulfinch’s Mythology, Prometheus, pp. 939-40.
(On the morning of February 25, 1983, the great dramatist
Tennessee Williams was found dead in a New York hotel suite.
He had choked on the plastic cap of his eyedrops bottle, which
he habitually held in his mouth when applying the eyedrops.
The alcohol and pills he'd consumed suppressed his gag response.
This poem is (we are asked to imagine) the last thing he wrote,
a flurry of notes scribbled on hotel stationery.)
Why don’t I just go out and meet some bum?
for I confound hell in Elysium.
Romantic anonymity, just like
you’re lost out in the rain, Ciudad Juarez …
No human thing disgusts me, if it’s not
unkind, or violent.
I feel good, now.
I’m jacked up, and I’ve got my Seconal wind.
Where are you, Merlo? I’ve spent too much time
alone. We make decisions - is it will?
Well, character is fate. (Those eye drops. Damn,
where are they?) Walking out on Mom and Rose
was something which, although it had to be,
required a holy selfishness of me
that was spectacular.
The Rose Tattoo.
The only thing I wanted was to love –
was that too much to ask? Somebody’s Stella –
Stella for star. We muse too much on cruelty.
The pain’s no bane, so long as there is love.
Who cares what people say, after you’re gone?
I just wish I’d been lighter, funnier.
Camino, Orpheus, Sweet Bird of Youth:
they’re all so miserable – I’m not like that.
I think I’ll do a comedy named “Playwrights Dead”.
They always seem to go in silly ways!
There’s Hasek, Aeschylus and Ottoway,
and Orton, too. And Marlowe, most of all.
I need an epigraph that’s frivolous,
ironic, ludicrous, nonsensical.
(Ah, found my drops.)
In spite of all life’s dangers
If “proud”’s allowed, two things above the crowd
still clamor loud. I love the Texas Rangers,
and casual kindness, meted out by strangers.
Death by Turtle
(An Eagles Snack Kills Aeschylus)
With light along the quiet beach receding
Sun and sand sink on obfuscated facts
Great tragedian figures don't live forever in the past
Along the shore where Sicilian eagles lift their wings
To drop turtles from on high to crack a shell wide open
Where Aeschylus walks by
Turtles can not fly
They fall on strangers or someone famous
Perhaps a bald man who writes Greek tragedy
Just another rock according to a hungry eagle
The day goes south and sour for poor Aeschylus
Mundane walks should be as simple as a thought
Without objects falling from the sky on him
How strange is fate, a tragic twist, a comedy
Death by turtle is never kind or even great
But sure is quick
An eagles snack kills poor Aeschylus
The turtle survived but walks with a limp
Slower than usual and was never taken in for questioning
Poor thing lives with sad memories
We think the eagle quit the hard shell industry
Too many injuries
*Authors note: This happens to be a historical fact. Aeschylus was bludgeoned to death by a turtle dropped from on high by an eagle.
Written: January 20, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
Quote: “There is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie.” Aeschylus,
Line of inquiry:
truth imbibed
awaits assimilation
we feel it in our bones
in time dissolved meditation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It lies so wisely in silence—a truth as vast as the sky,
Heart bonds are loud, and time is where secrets fly.
Another guidance from the soul is to meditate,
The benthic abyss of existence—may not captivate.
In the timeless Prometheus, ketamine never ends,
Words assail when sacrilegious with a weight of trends.
Wrapped by laceration, shadows murmur the truth,
We weave hedonistic worlds, crafted with airy youth.
No signs or manuals molded on musty scrolls,
But a heartbeat harmonious hum—echoing halls.
It mutters in muted times louder than any voice,
A celestial cadence that connects us in cool poise.
Meditation serves as a serenata for truth gems,
Sorting through shadows—to watch which hems.
In silence, we design stories woven from threads,
Into our depths, where gossamer rule treads.
In the mirror of prayer, truth makes its colors clear,
Every stroke is an enlightenment that destroys fear.
It's deemed with every heart, gavotte, and breath,
Until skills emerge from life's mellifluous wreath.
We do not grasp truth, but we acquire it with grace,
A rhapsody careens that falls into place.
It is a layer of us, shaped by the hand of time,
An idiosyncratic memorial in this changing grime.
What goes on in the gist of his mind?
He anxiously awaits the moment to hold his first love again,
to confine her in his palm and formulate a rhyme so fine,
a line so devine that when the array of stanzas
intertwine a quatrain is solified....
formed and cultivated-
born and recreated-
It's inconceivable to knock a rhyme off it's axis
as this echo of Aeschylus passes thy passion to the masses
repeatedly asking Jesus of Nazareth
for the endless tenacity on a regular basis with tastes of mastery....
formed and cultivated-
born and recreated-
Whatever this talent wrote last dawn had the tendency
of the late Edgar Allen Poe it spawned through his misery.
He breeds with prominent loves readers aw at his little seeds
that endlessly inspires blossoming writers charmed by his poetry.
formed and cultivated-
born and recreated-
What goes on in the gist of his mind?
There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
—Aeschylus
Happiness in Memoriam
Each neuron tingles with happiness, in unnerving vise.
Presently, the squeeze of brain, heart and grit, unbearable.
The lion’s faint, tin clatters, straw pieces pecked, crows gather.
Aeschylus: "Agamemnon"
A man in exile
Feeds himself on barren hope
Yields to fate in time
Aeschylus: "Prometheus Unbound"
Life's hard lesson
Wrong is shameful in the old
Time instructs us all
Sophocles: "Philoctetes"
Words not deeds rule men
Shaped to meet the moment's need
Waging war with fate
Sophocles: "Antigone"
Courage to choose right
And 'gainst harsh reality
Make no compromise
Aristophanes: "Lysistrata"
Poet's plea for peace
Fair breezes speed us onward
Making love not war
Euripides: "Alcestis"
Time will console you
Walk to the end of old age
The dead are nothing
pruned passions bled
clutching callous crest
felon fills fetched
dark dances decked
hoity hankers squashed
taunted thrills trashed
wet wits wanky
sassy sips sugary
nauseating nocturnal nitty
spanked syllables wept
drenching drooling depth
ballsy hollow belched
lusty length lent
porous punctures spent.
'20:03:23:12:34
Note: Dedicated to Aeschylus.
- AESCHYLUS
Strange thoughts give words
a pain. A mountain unfolds
a tunnel.He who carries a vase of ashes
must enter the gate to plot a path
for history.Ideas have turned into stones.
A violence erupts in long winter night.
Nobody understands the bird of time
who has lost the flight.
The bones learn the absence of house
in the forest of men. You realize the anointment
of unlearning. A gaudiest opulence
comes slowly in huts. The body becomes
blue in gentle fall of skimmed silence.
A prayer has a pernicious omen.
SATISH VERMA
I was reading Aristotle,
because I am just weird like that,
and as I poured through ancient words
I was presented with the fact
that what I read from classic times
saw far deeper then I can see,
he’s twenty-three centuries dead,
and somehow still smarter than me.
But there’s no shame in learning from
the writings of a genius mind,
and it’s comforting that we still
have this wisdom from bygone times,
but then I stop and remember,
when I have looked at all he wrote,
it’s tempting to think we have all,
but the truth of it is, we don’t.
We’ve got maybe a third of it,
and do we even have his best?
The rest of it has disappeared,
it wasn’t copied with the rest.
The originals longs rotted,
what we have copies made by monks,
what they had not, or valued low
has now forever been undone.
And though some people do assume
that all the best stuff was retained,
I think of all the books I’ve read,
from the genius to the inane,
and noticed that great wisdom can
sometimes come from an average read,
that one high point in the banal,
and who knows just where that might lead?
So even if the best remain,
and all the average works were tossed,
it still truly depresses me
when I realize all that we’ve lost.
Now Aeschylus wrote ninety plays,
and only six of them are left,
Sophocles wrote one hundred twenty,
now to seven can we attest.
And given how much those few plays
have shaped drama down through the age,
can you imagine what we’d have
if all those stories still remained?
In history there was Livy,
who wrote the long story of Rome,,
in one hundred forty-two books,
today just thirty-five are known.
The Iliad, The Odyssey,
Two great epics we all revere…
that cycle had six more poems,
and not one of them have we here.
Even the Bible refers to
countless books we no longer know,
what would our faiths all look like now
if to those texts we still could go?
CONCLUDES IN PART II.
Archimedes and Socrates
Plato and Horatio
Euclid and Ulysses and Odysseus
Crumbling white busts
Galileo and Milton
Copernicus, Newton
Aeschylus, Sophocles
Ancient technology
Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish
Lady Gaga and Rihanna
They're today's culture
~ vulture and piranha