LONG LISTED FOR THE 2023 GRIFFIN POETRY AWARDS
When the siege started the seer said it quite clearly: “beware
of silence;”
thus we fought while we yelled unceasingly; the drums and
the horns never stopped
while at night we stirred the women to lament over
the dead
so much so that sometimes one of the dead got annoyed
and stirred.
Until the enemy conquered the city with the next waning moon.
Then what about the seer? Oh, why the ambiguous words
of the gods?
Truly lost in the futile noise, silence finally won over us.
Manolis 