Peter Boyle Poems

The inhabitants of Phokaia are quite clear that their ancestors came from places far to the east, arriving in long ornately carved boats propelled by oars and a single sail. Yet the Phokaians possess no boats and had no
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In the time of the great emergency Enobius, the Emperor of the Palmyran legions, was banished beyond the Ister on the charge of necromancy. Yet it is well known that, rather than contacting the dead, he was simply a man haunted by
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Anaximenes was the first to calculate accurately the size of the universe. Whereas Nepenthe, daughter of the mathematician Ptarchus, devised the constant for the weight of the sky. Her cousin Mystra proved the different
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Among the ancients of our people, the Hellenic homeland and its numerous colonies and sister cities, the poet was a figure uniquely admired and deeply feared. It is well known that poems can always be altered by a poet and that
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In those days the sun was always sliding off the edge of the visible, vanishing then reappearing in the least likely places – a locked cupboard, a woman’s sandal, a darkened mirror or the shallow mound of earth where a gardener
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At the front of our house is dawn
and the mist of the sea that enters our valley.

On tree-branches
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In the feast laid out at Alcibiades’ house Terpander posed for us the question, “Why is it that time flows backwards?” Discussion continued on this topic for a while till the much-travelled Timon broadened our understanding with his
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In Africa not far south of Kitezh, only a few days journey from Ebtesum, in several rich and spacious valleys can be found the most beautiful language on earth. The sounds of this language so enchant all who hear them, the rapture is
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By morning
three women, an old man
with a cart, two children.
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In Kitezh and the kingdoms nearby, though they know of stone and timber and partly use them as conditions require, they prefer to build with water. The most prized houses employ three or more interwoven waterfalls for their walls
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