Best Cocytus Poems

Achilles, His Heart and Soul Were Mortal
Part One- (Years Before Troy)

Achilles* woke, his slain foes calling out his name
hearing merciless woes, his sharpen sword they blame
looking at the heavens he saw the moon glowing blood red
sending its message of truth about his victims now dead!

Rising...

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Love is her Belief and her Commandment
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Love is her belief and her commandment;
in restless dreams at night, she dreams of Love;
and Love is her desire and her purpose;
and everywhere she goes, she sings of Love.

There is a tomb in Palestine: for...

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This is the final CANTO of Hell. I am going to publish the full translation as epub on AMAZON. It was a very hard work to find rhymes in english.

“Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni now
Toward us; so you watch forward with care”,
My master told, “if you...

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The Tumid River of Acheron (the journey) Part 1

Dark the tumid, rushing waters flow
where man most wisely fears to go
Liquid blackness sings of epic pain
torture, misery and cries of insane
Echoes of evil Eperius in the West
shadow realm where evil never rests

Black ship of Kharon eternally...

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(continue from previous)
We walked then a farther site to reach,
Turning to left; and at leaf spring far throw,
We found other larger, fiercer to breach.

In binding him, whoever did it though
I cannot tell, but he just had quite close
In front the other, back the right arm...

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We passed over, where was held in frost state
Harshly contained people of the next band,
Not down bent, but all lying in quite strait.

Weeping itself  the tears does not disband,
And pain which finds in eyes of hitch so much,
Rebounds inside to grow and pain expand;

Since...

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The Tumid River of Acheron (the journey) Part One-Revised

Darkly,  the tumid rushing waters flow
where any man most wisely fears to go.
Liquid blackness singing in epic pain
torture, misery and cries of insane!
Echoes of  Eperius in the West,
shadow realm wherein evil never rests.

Black ship of...

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The Tumid River of Acheron (the journey) 
Part One- Final revision

Darkly,  the tumid rushing waters flow
where any man most wisely fears to go.
Liquid blackness singing in epic pain
torture, misery and cries of the insane!
Echoes of  Eperius in the far West,
shadow realm where evil...

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Hades and Tormented Souls (the Dwelling)
   (presenting a fragment of the second part promised)

Where the dark wind blows, lies abound
deep into a ravenous, hellish pit.
Lost souls cry and moan deep under ground
under evil torture each must submit.

Dark Hades, ancients called this gloom
agonizing souls,...

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I sink, and drown in all my sorrows
Bring me to darkness where I can forget.
Grant me that privilege, let me burrow
My final resting place, my final bed.
Forget, life, every word I ever said.

"I swim in darkness", once I wrote that poem.
And still I swim, Styx's...

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Under the feet of heartless passersby, a name no one knows 
where from, rolling along the path blood-stained; the name 
wounded from time after time is kicked and trampled
by the absentminded strollers drifting along the way 
no one cares where it leads to
 
the name,...

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Sarcomas hatch like caviar
in St. Jude chemo-fire inversions,
where leviathans lay magnetars
to suck the blood of
virgins.

Their celestial suckers nurse their mothers
through quantum-dot tunnels, converging
what little life force
might milk
metastatic roots while purging,

and scute steroids discarding the hair
that ganoid scales like
sturgeon
merging baby dragon parts there
in alternative medicine oceans.

Tumors...

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Deep in the dark, I stand
Nothing but darkness surrounds me
“Am I dead?” I ask myself
 No, if I were, I would be in heaven
Well seeing as I already lived in a hell
But didn’t they say that heaven is bright, white
Someone said it has angels floating...

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strobe into the secret night
the scene of our sacred crime
not just any old crime

I confess to you but 
I cry most insidious in design 
a crime worthy of the divine 

what can such a crime be 
that even a God can shame thee? 
‘tis but...

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Aeneid Book 6: The Descent into the Underworld
by Virgil
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The Sibyl began to speak to Aeneas:

“God-blooded Trojan, son of Anchises,
descending into the Underworld’s easy
since Death’s dark door stands eternally unbarred.
But to retrace one’s steps and return to the surface:
that’s the conundrum,...

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