D. Eric Parkison
Lessons from the Greek

This sunrise meets my excavation of Thucydides.
In the village, I read what empire inflicts
On itself in hoplites, in mercenaries,
While the briki on the hotplate squats

Over the burner, wrestler that flips
The coin of silty coffee muck
While Demosthenes argues about the ships
He needs to get stuck troops unstuck,

How many siege engines to lay the fertile plains to waste.
How like the partisans who hid in the mountains behind
My rooms were those men, how did their coffee taste?
This history gets so muddled in my mind-

Who made camp in stony hills, scattered
Over brown lands, who chose to kill everyone
In the village boys-school, allowed the dead
To be retrieved in peace, who died in which conflagration?

The dune of boiled grounds at the bottom
Of the demitasse remains sunk at first.
Then it comes, visible in the drink. The gleam
Of milk fat, the morning sun, the bell rings from the church,

A breeze rubs the curtain between forefinger
And thumb, eggs fry in oil,
The scents of dried herbs linger
Around each rubber-banded bunch. Roll

This cup and read the grounds, but they won't tell you
About the course of anyone's brief life spent
Trying to connect what's been done to what we do
In our liquid, black descent.

<< return to the Table of Contents for New Series #6: Winter 2018, Volume 3 Number 2