CHARIS
If any of my poetry or meditations unsettle one among you
Please tune your heart to other dances
Just as ye’d have it
For any other mortal!
POTESTAS:
Is it, then, so easy?
As all of this?
CHARIS:
If any of you are in a frail and vulnerable state
Skip lightly, thither
Just as you would trample
The stiffening corpses
Of all your other comrades.
POTESTAS:
And meanwhile, we needs must watch you stiffen?
CHARIS:
Do NOT read,
When your heart has not yet
Attained unto the courage requisite
For such endeavours fierce as thon.
POTESTAS:
Says he of such mighty courage!
CHARIS:
I do not merely reason aloud but (as it were)
Reflect aloud
POTESTAS:
Aye! And what hideous strains, then, be these?
CHARIS:
Something that little bit deeper, and more equivocal.
Yes, I am making big life changes
But I want to use it to strengthen me, myself…
And not to bring down others.
POTESTAS:
SHUT UP, BITCH, AND GET IN THE BOX!
________________________________________
This poem is part of a triptych (i.e. a set of three poems), called ‘Charis and Potestas.’ It will appear as a supplement to an existing ebook of mine: Foaming the Optics.
Feel free to catch the book in the meantime. But what about the updated version, complete with Charis and Potestas? Well, this will be available for download by 1 December 2017.
The ebook of Foaming the Optics is free from 23-26 October 2017, on Amazon.
The previous two poems were published yesterday and the day before, here on Glossy News.
Image attribution:
By NASA (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/surface.shtml) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
