Five Sublime Poems by Ethan Vilu

 

My Very Own Command Core

A scion of wrought iron, scattershot immovable steel.

A convex sanctum – steadfast, undaunted, hard-hearted.

Yours is a sphere from which everything shines more brightly:

the cemetery chill and the festival’s dizzying flowers.

A battle-scarred temple, grim-faced imperious retreat.

I have heard it said: it is through such frames that dreams enter.

Out in the field: a pitiful sculpture of bone.

Inside the core: the soul of a wounded lion. 

 

 

After Barnett Newman’s “Note XII (State I)”

Could a lone human life be complete,
and live out this command?
I have been on that beaten-down track
and commiserated plenty,
but I’ve yet to spill out into sleet
and sad musical fog.
You can feel that catacombs’ lack
in the air as you’re falling,
yet the movement is subtle and sweet,
and the particles wander, asleep
on the surface, that sad lodestar’s dream
where the self-possessed melody floats.

 

 

Into The Trench

The lithe thickets that make my name
synonymous with squid ink and tableaus
of solemn people drowning now requires
a more postmodern victim. I will oblige,

and fill your vision with passioned paper ghosts.

It’s what it is. I broker no complaint.
You offer me seeds of radish and kale
when I am trying to sow a minefield.
A trench of pride. An ocean of despair.

 

 

Third Rondel (Reno, NV)

A chasm formed beneath the grand hotel
now casts its prying eyes along the street -
a sidewalk where the hills and desert meet,
whose clarity no puritan could quell,

now thrust into a steel-plated shell,
those obelisks of silicon’s elite.
A chasm formed beneath the grand hotel
now casts its prying eyes along the street,

with ever-fading scraps of life to sell.
Those wretched wraiths now travel as a fleet
to overturn the ground below our feet
and water ghosts where faulty humans fell:
a chasm formed beneath the grand hotel.

 

 

Fourth Rondel (Blue Palace)

A spectred throne alight by candle fire,

varnished steel pots and purple sage.
Sceptre for a mesmerizing age,
steep beneath that vast unholy mire -

a forum where the yearning may inquire:
celestial glass upon a broken stage.
A spectred throne alight by candle fire,
varnished steel pots and purple sage.

A sepulchre to keep the night-scarred choir
safe, and yet aware of dauntless rage.
Scorn for that which forms a polished cage,
a nest where mourning doves must now retire:
a spectred throne, alight by candle fire.

"Ethan Vilu is a poet and editor from Calgary, Canada. Their long sheet A Decision Re: Zurich was published by The Blasted Tree in 2020. Ethan currently serves as both poetry editor and circulation manager for filling Station Magazine."