Thinking About Rome E-Book

Antelope Hill Publishing

• Herausgeber: Antelope Hill Publishing LLC
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

What do we see when we look at the past, and why does it so often tug at our hearts?
 
In the fourth Antelope Hill Publishing Writing Competition, entitled  Thinking About Rome, participants shared the reflections, emotions, and yearnings that come with considering our history – with all of its trials, tragedies, and lessons – and how doing so can motivate us today.
 
In the words of G.K. Chesterton: “Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because men had loved her.” The poems and short stories in this book consider the perennial nature of human experiences, whether they happened yesterday or thousands of years ago, and the intersections of our struggles today and those of times long past. The selected works – a collection that is somber, adventurous, tragic, pensive, and comedic – bear witness to the skills of the authors and the legacy of our people.
 
Antelope Hill Publishing is proud to present the selected works of our fourth annual writing contest,  Thinking About Rome.

Leseprobe

Antelope Hill Writing Competition 2024

Thinking About Rome

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T H I N K I N GA B O U T R O M E

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F O U R T H A N N U A L

Antelope Hill Writing Competition

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A N T E L O P E H I L L P U B L I S H I N G

Collection and Arrangement Copyright © 2024 Antelope Hill Publishing

No works appearing in this collection may be reproduced

without permission of their respective authors.

Cover art by Swifty.

Contest judged by the Antelope Hill administrative team.

Editing and layout by Margaret Bauer.

Antelope Hill Publishing | antelopehillpublishing.com

Paperback ISBN-13: 979-8-89252-028-7

EPUB ISBN-13: 979-8-89252-029-4

C O N T E N T S

Publisher’s Foreword

P O E T R Y

Selected Poems by Author

11011011

Berry

Blade

Chris Blexurd

Gordon Butler

J. B. Camville

Emily Jean Crocco

A. J. Dachauer

Edward Delacroix

Sig Denreim

June Egbert

Kaiter Enless

Dominick Carmine Giannattasio

Harrison George Gray

M. S. Jones

Kern “Kavalry” Keats‬

Scott R. McNeil

Ndabaningi

John Oghma

Filip Ostler

João Paulo

Anthony Ramsey

Noble Red

Arminius Rex

Ethan Robert

Saxon Stargazer

K. B. Steward

Shannon Strix

Wehrwolf Tactics

Henri Teloz

Anastasia Temnikova

Treader

THVMOS

Poetry Winners

Honorable Mention: “Three Dives of Minerva” by Handary See

Honorable Mention: “April 9, 1945” by Paul Dempsey

Honorable Mention: “Pietas” by John Alu

Second Place Winner: “I See the Marble Hercules” by Anonymous

First Place Winner: “The Song of Regulus” by Anon-Marie

S H O R T S T O R I E S

Selected Short Stories by Author

Achromous

Altweltaffe

Kaiter Enless

J. Ester

Noah Huffstutler

Mohammad Lonlabe

T. B. McGill

Ndabaningi

C. O’Brien

Alex Petrov

Francis Rockwell

‬‬Mark Time‬

Turn_Coat

Short Story Winners

Honorable Mention: “The Maker’s Castle” by Vasyli Kent

Honorable Mention: “Denying the Purple” by Christopher Jolliffe

Second Place Winner: “Zeno’s Djinni” by Michael Mapp

First Place Winner: “An Untold Story” by Michael Calloway

P U B L I S H E R ’ SF O R E W O R D

Antelope Hill Publishing is proud to present our Fourth Annual Writing Competition. Once again, we were delighted to see the outpouring of creatively in response to our theme “Thinking About Rome.” This year, we intended the theme—a tongue-in-cheek reference to an online meme—to prompt participants to contemplate the perennial nature of human experiences, whether they happened yesterday or thousands of years ago, and the intersections of our struggles today and those of times long past. This became the impetus for some of the most beautiful writing we have ever published, with a wide range of styles and approaches that do credit to all who submitted to the competition.

We want to thank all those who supported and promoted our competition, and especially all those who participated by submitting their writing, regardless of whether we accepted their submission or not. Our administrative team loved reading and reviewing almost all of the submissions, and many of the ones that did not make it in this year were cut only after fierce debate. Our selection and evaluation process this year held to a higher standard than in prior years, with some much-loved submissions being left on the cutting-room floor due to lack of consensus. All participants who made it into the final print edition should hold their heads up high as exemplifying the best among the pro-White scene.

We hope to inspire more writers in our sphere to produce quality literature for our people. The importance of literature and creative writing to the survival and self-knowledge of a people is one of the perennial facts of the human experience that shines through history. As conditions in the world around us continue to deteriorate, it is all the more important for our community to create its own culture—to write its own stories, for its own consumption, and for its own benefit—because no one else will do it for us. Our small publishing house is but one part of this effort, and insofar as we can nourish a love of literature and creative writing among our customers, we will be doing our part. Perhaps the pen is not mightier than the sword, but the eternal quote by Ernst Jünger comes to mind: “Habent sua fata libelli et balli (books and bullets have their own destinies).”

We hope you enjoy the works in this collection as much as we have, and we look forward to many more years of sharing your talent with the world.

Antelope Hill Publishing

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P O E T R Y

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Dantean Nights

11011011

The red, white, and green hangs on the wall

About to fall

Claims of all for one and one for all

Salve o Popolo d’Eroi

La nazione

From dead men, ideas have sprung free

From the Fourth Shore to Dalmatia’s coast

To give their most

A young nation with much to have boast

With knife in hand, and black shirts on backs

The sticks and ax

When the Combattimento attacks

A new empire built on the ruin

Concrete festoon

From dust to dust, it too shall fall soon

Republic to Empire twice reign

So born again

With lightning rails and thunderous train

Addio, riposati bene

Presto, duce

Our time will come, we will have our day

Ancient Love

Berry

In Rome’s embrace, passion’s flames did ignite,

Amidst marble halls, love took its flight.

Beneath the stars, two hearts entwined,

In whispered vows, eternal bind.

In ancient echoes, our love defined.

With every caress, our souls combined.

Your lips on mine, an inferno of desire,

Our love a beacon, in this world of mire.

In heated passion, we swayed and danced,

Love’s sweet music, a symphony entranced.

No words were needed between us two,

For in each other’s eyes, our hearts spoke true.

We reveled in the joy of forbidden love,

And prayed that our gods would smile above.

Like all things, our time soon passed,

And Cupid’s arrow could no longer last.

Our love forbidden, a dangerous game,

And soon came the day when we had to part ways.

Though miles may separate us now,

Our love remains eternal, forever bound.

So when you gaze upon Rome’s sacred walls,

Remember the passion that once enthralled.

For in this city of ruins and dust,

Our love will live on, forever just.

She Whispers

Blade

Pink stained skulls, poisoned water

Creeping masses, at fever pitch

Traitors stare, from every corner

Time to summon the long lost

Witches’ brew, a penny ’n quarter

Eerie echoes, a violent itch

Bastard traitors, fill their pockets

Parasite hordes, fill a ditch.

Striking hearts, across the borders

The parting glass, a wailing witch

Sparks of fury, rattle cages

She calls her sons, across the ages

Her whisper now a fury pitch!

Doll Aeneid

Chris Blexurd

Tartarus unmoved and Acheron flowing

slowly somewhere beneath her as she passes

from bedchamber to bedchamber. These

stories of men kept like obols. Hope of love

and home is more daunting than Olympus.

Indignity is all she knows of Aeolus.

Scuttled trysts, lost companions, and

a voyage begun without a full complement

remaining so throughout its course.

And the Gods are absent from every part of it.

Reverse Pygmalion

Chris Blexurd

she felt weak in my embrace

and almost warm

and I felt I could have molded

her then and there

with my hands and my lips, making

her perfect and happy

Turnus’ Dream

Chris Blexurd

the range was clean and white

like a hospital or a beach or heaven or

a place you just wake up in

on strings the targets flew like ghosts

above him, taunting the silent men who

waited as ships in their bays

and when he stepped forward, it felt like

sand under his feet, the discarded brass that

spread down to the shore

it was 50 yards to the water, according to

the hash marks, to where he could bend low and

wash away the blood from his hands

there was the smell of fish and a feeling

he had seen this before, the sun just so and

the hermit crabs exchanging shell casings

Head of a Roman Patrician

Gordon Butler

I

Unmoving, patient, the old patrician watches

As tightly-controlled dartings of hammer and chisel

Liberate his marble double from the rock.

An upright head emerges, chin and jaw

Are chipped and scooped in place, a lofty brow

Is shaved alive, and there, like sentences

The deep-ploughed folds of age are written in.

Descendants, future guests will recognize

The strength that bore an empire on its back

In that stone poem, each facial line and fold

A chaos ordered, lowness raised, a border

Pushed nearer to the edges of the map.

They’ll see the master’s proprietary eye,

The straight-spined pride that comes from seventy years

Of ruling over men, and in the veins

Rich blood from fathers’ fathers, handed down

Like a cup of precious wine. This bust will be

A testament in stone of noble stock;

Organic virtues cased in quarried rock.

II

Rome nails its downfall to planks of wood

On Calvary hill and a nation is

Abandoned by its gods.

The old stern virtues go soft

And liquify, all overgrown

With rainbow-colored rot.

Blood flows into the swelling cities,

Into the swirling brown-red maelstrom,

From a thousand muddied sources.

The gravity of the center weakens.

Far-flung provinces come unhooked,

Boundaries grow blurry and porous.

A falling empire drags him under

Into the mud, the hard marble

Sinking into a bath of earth.

Worms work around him and roots of trees

Grasp his shoulders. The turning world

Spins him senselessly about.

Sculpture becomes geology.

III

Then

An accidental spade.

Like a swimmer, he

Resurfaces

To a new millennium’s light.

They put him in a fluorescent museum

In a city which was bogland when he lived.

Around him the detritus of centuries:

Utensil fragments, stained finery, barbaric trinkets.

His house, family, nation are underground.

Stranded in a bloodless, sterile age,

He keeps his arrogant frown, his senator-scowl.

Caligae

J. B. Camville

I marched with Rome, one sunlit age,

Upon the Empire trail,

Carried forth on hobnail caligae,

And beneath the billowing sail.

With scarlet standard, galea bronze,

And blade of Spanish steel,

I succored Her ambition,

And brought Her foes to heel.

I built Her roads from sea to sea,

Brought Her trade, Her Tongue, Her tax;

I a slave for dirt and battle,

Purple dreams upon my back.

I killed to eat across the Earth,

Blood for barley, meat, and wine,

Blue Men in Alba’s heather,

And Cherusci on the Rhine.

’Twas there I made my final halt,

At the fringe of Empire’s end,

Where mist engulfs the forest,

And the air the war-horns rend.

My helm now crowns a tawny head,

My sword sleeps in a lake,

My bowels hang from an oaken branch,

My skull from lodge-hut stake.

Mayhaps some distant future,

When my deeds and bones have gone,

Will glorify my spirit,

At some distant Empire’s dawn.

They’ll stand upon my unmarked tomb;

“He marched with Rome,” they said,

But all the laurels in the world,

Won’t crown you when you’re dead.

The Curse of Rome

Emily Jean Crocco

The Curse of Rome has come upon us; I see it burn again,

Kindled by corrupt women and weak and evil men.

My Nation once was glorious! It brought a smile to every lip;

Turmoil has since conquered that noble kinsmanship.

When falls the Colossus, the works of old ability,

You know what is to follow is temporal instability;

For what nation can smile who tears its own dignity down,

By wild, reckless children who wear dishonor for a crown.

Descendants of great people have grown indolent through the years,

And there children are left with relics, ruins, and bitter, blinding tears.

Look upon what remains of greater, glorious days,

When a belief in God did guide our humble, erring ways.

Look upon our statues! Mark the genius of the hand that did this beauty forge,

Crumbled now by envious hands with evil hungers to gorge.

When action is not used to build great works of art,

There begins a hideous despair that makes its way into the very heart.

When virtue is no longer taught as the eternal, attractive design,

Then will you witness the fall of man and the corruption of his mind.

See now our shame; will no one come to mourn?

Once beauty and virtue were our aim, humanity we did adorn.

Witness this terrible curse: see how Rome can burn again;

Draw near this sad shrine made by the etchings of a pen.

Let this poem be a warning, a lesson and a hope

For it is often here in poetry the soul finds understanding and scope.

You have heard of our shame, and while there are many we do blame,

Little use is there in bickering when a ruin is in flame.

No. This be a time for heart, so take heart; we shall build our World again.

Pick up that proverbial fiddle:

Let our World be filled with music again!

Do not despair, and do not lose courage at sight of this formidable task at hand.

Such times you were meant for; this place of ruin you shall command.

Now arise Byzantium!

Byzantium, arise anew!

The Golden Age is before us;

We now must look to you.

The Arena

A. J. Dachauer

Our marble deities lay dismembered and maimed,

Just as our people, dishonored and blamed.

Barbarians envied our city’s white stone;

Dazzled by glory, they wanted it gone.

Upon gleaming columns we once conquered the sky.

Like Babel we fell, because rabble can’t fly.

We welcomed the Goths to plunder and loot

To the jolly wail of a Dionysian flute.

Ungrateful feet crushed the blood out of us;

They left it to ferment and mingle with dust.

Sedated by pleasures and this cruelest of wine,

Our people lost sight of the solar divine.

False emperors thrived in this castrated age

And tribunes above mocked our righteous rage.

Comfort to plebeians was the highest ideal:

“Crucify him, with the heart full of zeal!”

That crowd cheered on, for circus, for bread,

While the condemned had to kill or fall dead.

“The bleating of sheep won’t lead me astray;

“I will live as a lion, if just for one day!

“So let animals maul me, let steel pierce my chest—

“I refuse to bow down, low like the rest.”

Gladiator or martyr, the arena craved blood:

I gave it my all, and died as I stood.

An Ode to the Ancient City

Edward Delacroix

Oh great marbled city of the ages,

Molded and forméd by Mars’ sons’ strong hands,

Your glory is sung in hist’ry’s pages,

Imitated by all across Earth’s lands.

Senates and republics harken to thine,

Caesar’s name echoed by Kaiser and Tsar,

Fasces stand proud ev’n in Democr’cy’s shrine,

“Publius” nam’d, founder of stripes and stars.

’Gainst you still, Semites shout, scream, curse, and wail,

While all Evropa’s proud sons with pride teem,

Your victors and heroes still are hailed

And young men on your mem’ry build their dreams.

Though the eagle has flown and Empire gone,

The brilliant brightness of your flame shines on.

Empire Collapsed and Born Again

Sig Denreim

(A diptych)

They’re at the gates, don’t you hear?

It is just a matter of time,

We are surrounded from all sides,

The battle is unavoidable, yes.

Their language, customs, and looks,

It might look familiar, but no,

They’re not like us, no matter what,

Temple isn’t made by every rock.

Resemblance exists, without a doubt,

They’ve studied us well enough,

To know our ways and manners,

We even offered our help.

It is going to be bloody, horrific, rough,

When gods are at war, men always die,

Only Fortuna knows who remains,

To witness the end or a beginning.

Whatever there is to lead this life,

Forces that are many and unknown,

Hold the ground firmly enough,

Victory smiles at the bold.

There’s no time to wait, let’s charge,

Their fear is almost in the air,

So weak and desperate they are,

This is the final hour, the last drop.

Spreading so easily has consequences,

Ideas and thoughts unroll, like it or not,

Some are good, some made us slaves,

And now comes the decent payback.

Beautiful cities they made, yes,

And temples and roads and all of art,

It went from their eyes onto the stone,

They never asked anyone else.

Decadence is the widest ideal ever,

No man easily resists,

And when enough is enough, finally,

The balance must be restored.

Winning is not easy, not at all,

Wounded beast is at its strongest,

It has to be killed in order to die,

Only then can something be born, again.

Secundus

June Egbert

My Home is so beautiful when the sun is low

Apollo, we call him

Invictus, we call him

And when he leaves, there is a shade

Diana, we call her

Caelus, we call her

When the sun is low

What did you, ancient peoples, think about?

So long before I was born?

Ancient Egyptian sand

Foregone Persian bronze

Withered Etruscan pillars

What people laughed and ate beside you?

What faces did they bear?

Did they, too, know the sun?

And the shade of the moon?

My home is so beautiful in the morning

When Apollo comes young

And the wet dew lies soft on the grass

I’m with my blonde beloved

Did you love as we do?

O ancient peoples?

I know it won’t be forever

My marvelous home, this shining city

Though we reach and grab outward so far as we can

I know it won’t last forever

The Eternal City, sitting on the hill

Will you know the sun as we did

O people to come?

Will you call him Apollo?

Will you call her Diana?

When the sun is low?

I hope you love as we do

Or perhaps you will fight, as we do

On the sand

With your new bronze

Knocking down my city’s pillars

Will your face look like mine?

I think I would love you

You, who inherit my city

The language and ways of my Empire

I know you will build upon us

Our magic will be your science

Our brilliance, your ordinary

So even through time

Let us look at the same sun

And lie under the same moon

Because I know my city is truly eternal

In your history

In your world

In your heart

O people to come

The Citadel

Kaiter Enless

Aeneas, from dire Trojan blaze,

Midwifed by arrowtip and flame.

Sallied the she-wolf’s proteges,

With bronze and lion’s mane.

Iron hewn, high path to plumb,

When Alba’s usurper is defied,

Drones the earth, a rubied drum,

That The Citadel will debride.

Higher swelled the garland rock,

By marbled wills of Principates,

And shadows of low Tarpeia stalk,

All thrumming, cloudborne states.

Thunder of the circus crowd,

Hero’s engine as hoofs descend,

From soil unto blue Aether’s shroud,

Where chariots of fire wend.

Neptune bare as arroyo Rhine,

Black wastes gleam as Persian pearl,

Stars, hills of new Palatine,

Whereat drifting forts unfurl.

Long as heard the spire’s knell,

Riven by blood beyond recall,

The fair towers of The Citadel,

May tilt, but never fall.

The Forgotten Hearth

Dominick Carmine Giannattasio

Upon this darkened hearth,

Where the blood of our fathers once burned.

Lay the cold, forgotten embers. . . .

Their scornful spirits to return.

We shall surely feel their wrath,

As the centuries shall pass.

Abandoned to a lonely curse.

Stirring in their quenchless thirst.

Through the eons do their echoes cry,

Through pinewood forests and mountains high.

Over seas that roar in the frozen night;

They seek to end this wretched blight.

A memory of exalted flame,

In burning souls—ignites again.

The rightful sons with might and main,

To return with honor to their reign.

Before our noble hearth we stand,

Loyal to our blood and land.

With eager offerings in hand,

To heal our great ancestral strand.

With blood to sword we take our oaths,

And raise our banners across the coasts.