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Heart of Ilium

2018 · 28 lines · 7 stanzas

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POEM: P-01 · Heart of Ilium 2023 · 28 lines · 7 stanzas

Heart of Ilium

A story woven years ago, in lands of war and wine
A story loved by many that withstood the test of time
Of hubris, love and pain and death, from lands beyond the sea
Yet people who remember will still sing to you and me
When Greek and Argive warriors had flocked the battlefield
A treacherous ploy unfolded, causing wounds that never healed
When great Achilles left the war all for a single fight
The Trojan lands were filled with blood, the houses set alight.
But still remains a final denoument that so ignites
The fiery heart of the Achaean prince — as the night
Reached its highest zenith and the moon rose in the sky
That was when his dearest comrade was fated to die
At the hands of famous Hector, in line for the Trojan throne
Did brave Patroclus face his end, stabbed right to the bone
In this intricate web the gods did weave a sombre tale
A fate for Trojan people, desperate fights that always failed.
But when the gods discovered something was, somehow, awry
And Troy was going to face a dreaded cataclysm nigh
They tried to intervene and stop the endless decimation
And finally, Achilles fell, doomed to termination.
A single arrow, aimed right to his heel, was culmination
Of the life of this young Phthian prince, and also the cessation
Of this tale, but it still reigns on in the noble hearts of few
Who, to this day still hold it dear, and I hope you can too.
Annotations

Stanza 3: final denoument — the death of Patroclus, the turning point of the Iliad; Achilles' grief for his dearest comrade drives the poem's final movement.

Stanza 5: the gods' intervention — a departure from Homer, where the gods are capricious rather than corrective; here they attempt to stop the decimation but fail.

Stanza 6: Phthian prince — Achilles, son of Peleus, king of Phthia; the arrow to the heel the famous vulnerability, the culmination of a life lived in war.

Evolution

Written in 2018 as the earliest sustained poem in the collection. Composed in a single afternoon after reading the Iliad in translation. Revised once in 2020 to tighten the meter; the present version retains the original's sweeping narrative voice.

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