Dancing During War and Love
When All Is Fair
I chose something smaller —
The point of a pin,
Not its head.
.
I do my jig upon it —
My dance of life
And avoid my Achilles' heel.
.
Flesh can be penetrated
By the density of a point,
But immortals revel there, impermeable.
.
It is true, we angels exist preternatural,
Contraphasic, and irrelevant
To the laws of worldly physics.
.
In the times when all is fair,
All other considerations fall notches
In timeliness.
.
And the sages argue how many —
How many of us — can dance
On this acicular precipice,
.
While Constantinople
Falls to the Turks! But — praise the Lord:
Our angel-counting is accurate.
.
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_the_head_of_a_pin%3F#:~:text=%22How%20many%20angels%20can%20dance,hold%20no%20intellectual%20consequence%2C%20while):
"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" (alternatively "How many angels can stand on the point of a pin?") is a phrase that, when used in modern contexts, can be used as a metaphor for wasting time debating topics of no practical value, or on questions whose answers hold no intellectual consequence, while more urgent concerns accumulate. The phrase has been associated with the fall of Constantinople, with the assertion that scholars debated the topic while Turks besieged the city.
The reference, "in times when all is fair," refers to the adage, "All is fair in love and war," but there's no love here.
About the Creator
Gerard DiLeo
Retired, not tired. Hippocampus, behave!
Make me rich! https://www.amazon.com/Gerard-DiLeo/e/B00JE6LL2W/
My substrack at https://substack.com/@drdileo
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Comments (17)
Congrats on Top Story!🥳
Love this piece.
Your poetry is interesting. Buy I love this guy's poetry 👇 https://www.facebook.com/100010296994439/posts/2183692751983937/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v I found it on Facebook and it was worth my time!.
Bravo! Your hard work is paying off—keep it up, congratulations!
It really does remind me about all of the arguments that people have that lead to nowhere, instead of progressing forward with the problem at hand. I wonder if that's because when addressed the problem will cause the people to separate and go in their own directions, even thought they desire to be together. Yet, on the other hand people use those kind of arguments to prevent people from coming to the real truth of what's actually concerning. Hence, questions that have no answers are just meant to drain people's time and energy in the hopes that they no longer pursue a proper answer, and other people want an answer to fit their ideals, but the universe doesn't bend backwards for them. I've come to love telling people "The answer You get isn't the answer You want." That and it stops people fishing for compliments.
I read this yesterday and I was so sure I hearted and commented but looks like I didn't 😅 Your poem had so much depth to it! I loved it! Congratulations on your Top Story!
Those notes really help show up what you did here.
Beautifully written. The notes at the end added perspective I never knew.
I liked that you added notes, I now learned something. Congratulations
Great poem and I've learnt something new. Wins all round. Congrats on TS.
first of all, congratulations on TS status. You truly deserve it. This piece is fantastic.
Amazing!! Also thank you for introducing a new word to my vocabulary
Beautiful write up
Contraphasic! What a word!
Oh I love this.
This is beautifully written. Well done.
Really nice