Two poems by Gabriel Olearnik

Wanderer

• The sea has soaked my heart
• and so my soul will take the road
• the spume playing
• a billow on a bright wind.

• And if I am alone, it does not matter
• for Poseidon is a friend again
• the east wind my brother
• the plumes are like the furrowed earth
• the spray is like the tears of god.

• Arcadia is ahead, the place where
• sails pass for tents, anchors turn to plows
• where oars are a thresh for grain
• where hearts find their native land.

Lodge

• Stay like the woodsmoke
• between cut boughs
• of pine.

• Settle like the strike
• of bells
• on fastnesses
• of mountain white.

• For here is also Tao
• Confucius waiting on the road
• for new disciples, a mulberry bush, a bird

• Here Herodotus is leaving Harcarnassus
• Buddha is being born
• A Republic dimly considered
• A tyrant choked with a pillow

• Here the voice
• brilliant as magnesium

• (because I love you
• you will not die).

Gabriel Olearnik studied medieval history and art at University College London. He has published two collections of poetry: Amor de Lohn (A Distant Love) and Gunpowder Square. His third collection, Wolf Sermons, is scheduled to be released this fall.