Isabel Szurlej Poems

He is not a Sheriff.
He only makes sure nothing slides away—
no day stepping out of history, backward,
nobody rewinds the tape before the shot.
...

Last stand for her upon the thymele,
A stage denied its sacrificial torch.
Tragedian's voice tears the air apart;
A mournful mask bows low before the choir
...

Once a lone ship was shattered off a ghost isle;
her helmsman, William Lee, did not truly drown,
yet he returned neither dead nor living.
For years he wandered, caught between the worlds,
...

Pain is a separate soul—
the soul of an abandoned world.
He approaches from land burned with fire
forming log ghosts. His watchful steps inflame
...

A bar of ghosts—champagne staged for exposure,
cold bottles sweating under diamond lamps:
The light is brutal: reporter-flash through smoke—
each sparkle reads as evidence, not glamour.
...

Metal-lit, red wings deploy—
broken horn arcs up, a question honed black.
Lightning scores a cobalt wash—
a live spark seeking discharge.
...

This time the prophecy was clearly shewn:
Troy could not fall without Achilles' aid.
The leader of the stout Myrmidon host—
Fear-bringing spearmen Zeus had raised from ants—
...

Tears of the Sun glide outward, loosen'd free,
To Kerberos, star-hound of nether gloom.
There, in that threefold serpent-fire, they burn,
Wide, wakeful eyes that track the turning worlds,
...