Standards

“the rivers’ silt swelling with blood / for a piece of linen waving, a moving cloud” ~Seferis, after Euripides

All flags are Helen’s tunic.

There never was a Helen,

Never an ideal

Justification

To unfurl and follow death,

Only the shadow, the cloud.

Flickering, literary

Afterlives haunt all armies,

All pretense to cause

Of bloodshed other than lust

For resources, power, and blood.

Nothing but the eidolon

Of justice came to any

Citadel that rose or fell.