Ilium’s sword is overcome by Homer’s spear.
An epic verse that masks and masks again
the players in a drama cast in stone.
They come from out the mind to appear
as Grecian warriors reborn in the flesh;
who caught up in the battlement of war
suffer mortal wounds. Yet, as heroes dare
to gain the spoils that others can but wish.
I do not see the man whom Homer was
for he is too cloaked within the path of time.
The sharpened stylus moving with the rhyme
of atom touching atom only finds the fair Achilles;
not the hand that writes him on the stage,
not the mentor of this student of the page.
Achilles in Time and Space by David Hobberlin
achilles
September 1995
Source: The author
I am a Canadian poet currently living in Chippawa. Over the years my poems have appeared in a number of anthologies and periodicals beginning with the anthology ‘Canadian Poets of 1969’.
The poem ‘On the Waterfront of Toronto’ earned the Monica Ladell Award 2012 for best poem presented by the Scarborough Arts Society.
I have participated in various poetry readings and venues held in Toronto, Scarborough, Welland, St. Catharines, Niagara-on-the-Lake, and Niagara Falls.
Grey Borders Books published three chapbooks of my poetry – Inanna (A Tale of Sumer), Reflections on the Republic, and Going to Work on a Snowy Morning. Click to visit the David Hobberlin page on the Grey Borders Books website
The Indian Heritage Council of Morristown, Tennessee, published a limited edition chapbook ‘The Pipe Maker and Other Poems’ in the millennial year 2000.