Take One, Make Ten Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

I used to play with Diolantos, controller of his mom,
who controlled Themistocles, the leader of Greece.
I envied him when they fled to the court of Artaxerxes,
when he appointed his father as Governor Magnesia.
The Great King offered to them taxes, jewelries, wines
servants, his illegitimate kids to keep them company.

How are you, my neighbour, without school, friends?
You learned manners, customs to serve the Persians?
Your soul is an empty well, your legs are atrophied,
cannot withstand a battle or a competition in Olympia.
Rumours say Roxanis named you as Athenian snakes,
both desperate in mountains, near the Dalianis shrines,
surely you would bribe to bury your bones in the Attic,
where the birds sway the sky when they fly up high.

Leave Asia, come to keep playing; so I’ll teach you
'Take one, make ten', as my own father taught me:
how to paint with the mouth, to talk in the Agora,
to build a Stoa; a wonder happens if you want it so,
if a flame burns you without you fearing that flame,
then you can freeze the lava and form a bar of gold.
Becoming older have a dream, to become a child.


© JosephJosephides