Long Seneca Poems
Long Seneca Poems. Below are the most popular long Seneca by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Seneca poems by poem length and keyword.
Timendi causa est nescire (Ignorance is the cause of fear).
– Seneca
About two thousand years ago,
when Quintilianus said it
(at least, that’s who gets the credit),
his paradigm was apropos:
the words “Vestis Virum Reddit.”
Garbed in leather, silks, and cotton,
emperors took his words to heart
(at least, they tried to look the part).
While rags for the misbegotten
kept wealth and hoi polloi apart.
Latin lessons soon forgotten
as kingdoms rose and kingdoms fell.
The rich get rich, the poor rebel
all through the Middle Ages rotten,
and the Enlightenment as well.
The New World spawned a tyrant king,
who would rule The Divided States,
fomenting fears with false dictates.
He'd boast that he knew everything,
a claim the test of time negates.
Galumphing loud he’d hit the links,
while flashing flaming orange hair,
and a most massive derriere.
His minions thought it ugly stinks,
but if he knew he didn’t care.
Sometimes he’d putt without his clothes,
few dared tell him he’s forgetful --
those who tried were soon regretful.
For it’s the truth that he most loathes,
and Media makes him fretful.
What is the measure of a man
who walks naked from his tower
while his Party members cower?
Has no patriot in his clan
the spine to speak truth to power?
When pictures in the Press were viewed,
“Fake news!” he’d claim. “This I decree.
I wear fine clothes, as you can see.”
Blame hubris? Blame ineptitude?
Let’s let the judge be history.
So, let us speak of history,
to the feckless that forget it
the words “Vestis Virum Reddit.”
Let truth be not a mystery --
give Quintilianus credit!
February 2022
"Latin Lessons" Poetry Contest sponsored by Margarita Lillico
Critical citizen
It's more than my opinion
Did you pray
Do you pray
Or do you just walk away
Delusional Denison
It has been mentioned
How cruel and distant you are
You are hidden shattered star
I'll Fly Away spirit
Crucial brethren
Seneca mistrusting sister
Do you Grudge
Did you mistrust
Is it your way to always complain
Delusional demon
Manifest itself in you while you're dreaming
You're a shattered hidden star
Refusing to stand up instead of walking you crawl
I'll Fly Away spirit
I think I rather pray than complaint
Censor your words
Let's expound encourage.
Humanity Unite
Renew your life
Be endearing and caring
Stop letting it be
Shine Your Light
Pray for me
1/17/20
Written word by James Edward Lee Sr 2020
Plato says that Heaven is perfect things,
that nothing pure or good exists on earth.
We leave the Ideal World when, at our birth,
like ants who've briefly flown, we shed our wings.
All infants cry, in Shakespeare's view, when first
they leave the womb, to find this Vale of Tears
is what they must inhabit four score years,
dreading hardships into which they've burst.
Our human life, so Seneca would say,
is prone to failure, suffering and pain.
The only shreds of solace that remain
are stoic calm, acceptance of decay.
They're wrong, of course, to tend towards this view:
but then, my Perfect Girl, they didn't know you.
A Place of Creation
---------------------
Telephone City, Wayne Gretzky’s home town, the place of my birth.
Thirty three years, I played, worked and walked this piece of earth.
Given - by Sir Frederick Haldimand, “ Haldimand Proclamation, ” -
to the Iroquois, six miles, each side of the Grand River, the six Nation
Reserve, from its source to its mouth ( 950,000 acres ) 904,000 eradicated,
46,000 acres left for the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, the rest confiscated,
as the Oneida, Seneca and Tuscarora are left to share this land.
Most taken by many devious means at the white man’s hand.
This is the place I grew up, the place that educated me.
The mean Streets of Brantford, forty years I seldom see.
Three thousand miles, forty two years away.
Life has been, in many ways, lived within a fray.
Home is where the soul, the spirit, the heart is, anyway.
So out here in beautiful B. C., is where I will stay.
B. J. “A” 2
April 4th 2016
"A woman is not just someone whose shape is praised
only for her legs or arms... but one whose entire appearance
allows for the possibility of admiring her individual parts." Seneca!
The greatest example of quality,
of human greatness!
Spiritual superiority,
moral development,
elevated evolution,
celestial proximity,
with the highest spheres...
This is woman,
the synthesis of what it means to be human!
Woman, human being
holder of potential
of divine virtues,
missionary creature
granted by God...
Therefore, close
to the divine works
to care, watch over, and give love...
Woman, fulcrum of compassion
endowed with a sense of balance
knows how to act in disparate situations
with tenderness and competence
handles mistakes with
mastery and dexterity...
Woman is the greatest love,
the mainspring of life!
the ultimate symbol of beauty!
I walked along the road in nowhere
Seeing only the shadows of nothing
Then suddenly something almost real appeared
And I was sent somewhere in the absence of anything
Here the nonsense of the unreal was codified
And the theory of the ridiculous was lived daily
So that the logical was absurd
And the rational was only a syllable of nonsense
So I laughed with the emotions of the ancients
And thought with the thoughts of the dead
So that the result was as real as this unreality
Of infantilism and hate mixed with rage and desolation
I asked myself where I was
Only to hear an answer from nowhere
I asked why I was here
And I heard an answer that sounded like nothing
So I laughed with the laughter of Seneca
And gave in to the non-emotions of the Stoics
I sensed that I had finally arrived
At the end of the road in nowhere
Ruler of the Cataracts-Maiden of the Mist
The thundering waters of the Niagara.
Voice of the mighty spirits of the water.
The natives believed and yearly sacrificed
a white canoe with fruit and flowers
and a chosen daughter, until the Christians
came and told them Jesus paid. Not until
Lela-Wala, an only child and motherless,
was chosen did the practice subside.
After she dived, her father Chief Eagle
ran out of the woods and followed her.
1/11/2022
HANDSOME LAKE
He was born as Hadawa'ko “Shaking Snow.”
Handsome’s half-brother was Cornplanter.
My heritage from People of the Longhouse —
John married Margaret, a French woman.
She birthed Helen, my great-great-great grandma.
Together they lived on a reservation.
Handsome was born in 1735 in a Seneca village
on the Genesee River into the Turtle Clan —
later he was adopted into the Wolf Clan.
Doubtless my relatives knew of Handsome Lake.
He signed the U.S. treaty with the Six Nations.
1/11/2022
Referenced Wikipedia.com and webwinds.com
Plato says that Heaven is perfect things,
that nothing pure or good exists on earth.
We leave the Ideal World when, at our birth,
like ants who've briefly flown, we shed our wings.
All infants cry, in Shakespeare's view, when first
they leave the womb, to find this Vale of Tears
is what they must inhabit four score years,
dreading the hardship into which they've burst.
Our human life, so Seneca would say,
is prone to failure, suffering and pain.
The only shreds of solace that remain
are stoic calm, acceptance of decay.
They're wrong, of course, to tend towards this view:
but then, my Perfect Girl, they didn't know you.