Tag: Poems

Greek, Poetry

Hera

The Royal Octopus

They call her wrathful, cold, unkind,
A jealous heart, a vengeful mind.
But look again, beneath the crown—
A woman worn, a goddess bound.

She is the vow, the wedding flame,
The whispered prayer in lover’s name.
The guardian of bond and bride,
Yet left alone, denied her pride.

Zeus, the king, with roving eyes,
Seeks out the earth and splits the skies,
Lays with nymphs in secret glades,
While Hera watches love betray.

She cannot strike the thunder’s core,
So wrath becomes her shield of war.
Leto, Io, Semele—
Were they not touched unwillingly?

She curses them, but would you not,
If love was theft, and faith forgot?
If every glance your husband gave
Became another soul to save?

A crown of thorns disguised as gold,
A tale of loyalty untold.
She is not cruel without a cause,
She bleeds behind Olympus’ laws.

They say she struck with bitter fire—
Yet scorn was all she could acquire.
She bore the weight, she held the throne,
And faced the storm, and stood alone.

So judge her not for what she did,
But ask what you would do, if hid
Behind the veil of queen and wife
Was just a woman, wrecked by strife.

© 2025

Greek, Poetry

Zeus

The Royal Octopus

Upon Olympus, carved from storm,
He sits where tempests take their form.
A sceptre held in sky-born hand,
He rules the gods, commands the land.

His voice is thunder, vast and raw,
The wind itself bends to his law.
With flashing eye and brow of flame,
He calls the lightning by its name.

He gave the world its shape, its fire,
He struck down Titans in his ire.
Yet still, beneath that kingly grace,
Lurks pride and lust time can’t erase.

No vow too sacred, none too small,
He breaks and binds at every call.
He loves with hunger, leaves with ease,
He whispers sweet, then dooms with breeze.

The skies obey, the earth will quake,
When Zeus decides what he shall take.
And still we lift our eyes in prayer,
To sky’s cold throne, though none sit there.

For kings may fall and temples rot,
But Zeus, it seems, has been forgot.
Or has he? When storms begin to roar,
We wonder if he walks once more.

© 2025

Greek, Poetry

The Twelve

The Royal Octopus

They reign above on thrones of light,
Each god a power, each gift a right.
Immortal hands that bless or break,
They give with love, or take for sake.

Zeus, the storm-king, fierce and proud,
Speaks justice loud, then veils in cloud.
He throws his lightning, cracks the sky,
Yet turns his gaze when mortals die.

And Hera, queen with steely grace,
Wears loyalty like veiled disgrace.
She guards the vows that gods betray,
And scorches all who lose their way.

Poseidon, brother, sea-born brute,
With trident raised and wrath acute.
He calms the tides with whispered prayer,
Then drowns the sailors unaware.

Demeter, robed in golden grain,
Will bless the soil or starve the plain.
She grieves her loss and makes us pay,
In withered field and cold decay.

Then Aphrodite, born from foam,
With lips that build or break a home.
She brings desire, she stirs the flame—
But love to her is just a game.

Yet Ares waits, a snarling cry,
Where blood and kisses meet and die.
They dance through war, they burn through peace,
And never let their hunger cease.

Athena, wisdom’s shining spear,
A patron fierce, a judge austere.
She guards the just, the brave, the bold—
Yet cursed the ones who broke the mould.

Hermes glides with wingèd feet,
A smiling thief, a guide, a cheat.
He speaks in riddles, sings in lies,
And barters truth in clever guise.

Hephaestus, bent with molten art,
Creates the thrones they tear apart.
He builds their splendour, bears their slight,
And sleeps alone, far from the light.

Artemis of the silver bow,
Protects the wild and strikes her foe.
She walks the woods, untouched, unseen,
A huntress cloaked in starlit sheen.

Her brother, bright Apollo’s flame,
Plays golden notes in glory’s name.
He heals, he blinds, he brings the sun—
But always burns when day is done.

And Dionysus, last and young,
With ivy crown and wine-soaked tongue.
He laughs through tears, he breaks through walls,
And leads the mad in moonlit halls.

So praise them well, with fear and song—
Their wrath is swift, their grace is long.
But know this truth beneath your breath:
The gods bring wonder… and your death.

© 2025

Greek, Poetry

The Shears of Atropos

The Royal Octopus

They always fear me, speak my name
With lowered voice and quiet blame.
As though I come with scorn or spite,
To steal the soul, to snuff the light.

But I do not hunt, I do not seek,
I wait till thread grows soft and weak.
Till all that should be said is said,
And life lies down its weary head.

I hold the shears, yes—this is true—
But what I cut, I do not choose.
I do not watch with cruel delight,
I do not crave the final night.

Some go in sleep, in gentle grace,
Some in the dark, in harsh embrace.
But when the thread begins to fade,
I give it peace where none is made.

I’ve severed kings and beggars both,
The faithless, and the ones with oath.
And yet, the shears do not divide
The worth of who you were inside.

I end the song, but not the tune—
It echoes on beneath the moon.
And all I ask, as silence grows,
Is that you walked the path you chose.

So when you think of me with fear,
Remember this: I draw you near.
Not with a curse, not with regret—
But as the thread and soul reset.

©️ 2025

Greek, Poetry

The Measure of Lachesis

The Royal Octopus

I take the thread once Clotho weaves,
Still warm with breath, still laced with leaves.
I stretch it out between my palms,
To sense its tides, its storms, its calms.

No mortal sees the marks I feel,
The subtle weight, the quiet steel.
Some threads are thin, yet burn with fire,
Some thick, but lost in dark desire.

I do not judge, I do not steer,
But still, I see what draws me near.
A soldier’s spark, a lover’s thread,
A poet’s path through tears unsaid.

The length is not for me to make,
But I can see what roads it takes.
The twists of fate, the branching ways,
The turning nights, the hollow days.

They call me silence, call me fate,
But I am patient, I will wait.
For all must pass through hands like mine—
The time must stretch before the line.

And when I lay it down at last,
The weight of futures, present, past,
I leave it gently, like a song,
To her who ends what we prolong.

©️2025

Greek, Poetry

The Threads of Clotho

The Royal Octopus

I sit where time forgets to breathe,
Among the stars, beneath the weave.
The spindle turns, the fibres hum,
And through my hands, the lifelines come.

So many lives, so soft, so brief,
A thread of joy, a thread of grief.
I do not choose, I do not sway,
I only spin what finds its way.

A cry is born, the strand appears,
So small, so bright, untouched by years.
I feel it pulse, I feel its tone,
And yet, it is not mine to own.

Some come tangled, some come clear,
Some thick with love, some laced with fear.
I twist no hate into the line—
What mortals add is not from mine.

You think us cruel, aloof, and cold,
Because we work with what unfolds.
But if you’d sat where I have stood,
You’d see how much is misunderstood.

For every thread I set to spin
Is soft as breath upon the skin.
Each one I cradle, pure and light,
A single soul against the night.

I’ve wept to feel a thread cut short,
Or watched it fray without support.
But still I spin, I do not rest—
The world depends upon this quest.

My sisters wait, they count and shear,
But I begin what draws them near.
And though my fingers never still,
I sometimes pause upon a thrill—

A thread that hums with something rare,
A glint of song, a rebel’s prayer.
And in those strands, however few,
I glimpse what mortals choose to do.

So live, but know the thread is spun,
A start is made, a course begun.
Yet how it twists, and how it grows—
Is more than even Clotho knows.

© 2025

Norse, Poetry

The Children of Loki

The Royal Octopus

Three children born beneath the stars,
Marked by fate and battle scars.
Not monsters, no, but souls denied,
By gods who feared what they’d not tried.

First came Fenrir, wild and bold,
A wolf pup with a heart of gold.
He played with Tyr and chased the light,
But gods grew pale at signs of might.
They fed him lies, they forged a chain,
They bound him fast in fear and shame.
He howled not rage, but loss and grief,
Betrayed by hands that swore relief.

Then Jörmungandr, born of sea,
A serpent child, long, strange, and free.
He coiled through oceans, calm and vast,
No threat, until the verdict passed.
Cast out to depths, alone to grow,
With none to teach, and none to know.
They called him beast, a foe, a blight,
For daring just to be, not fight.

And Hel, the girl with silent grace,
Half in death, and half in place.
They saw her skin, one side so pale,
And called her cursed, and doomed her tale.
They banished her to rule the dead,
A crown of bones upon her head.
But never cruel, she kept the gate,
And held the lost with quiet fate.

Three children not of wrath, but wronged,
By gods whose hearts grew cold and strong.
Who feared the shape of what might be,
And punished them for prophecy.

But time turns slow, and tales return,
And fires rise, and oceans churn.
At Ragnarök, they rise not just
To fight, but to reclaim their trust.

Fenrir runs, the bindings break,
Not just for rage, but for love’s sake.
Jörmungandr coils, the world to brace,
To show the gods what they displaced.
And Hel stands calm as all things end,
The keeper of both foe and friend.

The gods will fall, as all things must,
And learn too late what’s fair and just.
For monsters come from fear, not birth—
And even outcasts can shake the earth.

©️ 2025

Norse, Poetry

The Trickster’s Song

The Royal Octopus

In Asgard’s halls of shining gold,
Where tales of gods and might are told,
There walks a shadow, ply and sly,
With laughter curled and clever eye.

Not born to throne nor praised in song,
Yet all have known his pull so strong.
The weaver of the web unseen,
The silver tongue, the shifting mien.

Loki, child of frost and flame,
Of shifting face and changing name.
One moment friend, the next a foe,
Where he may lead, none truly know.

He danced through lies like stepping stones,
He broke the peace, he rattled thrones.
Yet in his jest, a hidden cry,
A pain too deep for gods to spy.

A brother once to thunder’s might,
He laughed beside the god of light.
Yet fate and fire would split the thread,
Till bonds of blood and trust were shed.

He wore a grin none could unmask,
A thousand truths behind each task.
Yet who has seen the tear he hides,
When silence falls and rage subsides?

He birthed the wolf, the serpent’s tide,
The death of gods he did not guide.
But still the blame fell on his name,
The trickster caught in fate’s cruel game.

So curse him, praise him, fear his flame,
But know he played a deeper game.
Not just a jester born to fall,
But one who dared to challenge all.

For chaos walks where order sleeps,
And in the dark, the trickster weeps.
A god of masks, of wounds, of lore—
And still, he’ll knock on every door.

© 2025