The salty Peloponnese flood
Of minerals and Trojan blood
Is in this oily, briny fruit,
Savored by Milton to salute
The poets of antiquity.
It is the flavor of the sea
And ink squirtings of cephalopods;
Mortality plucked from a god’s
Martini at the end of time,
When guilt squares up with every crime,
And joy has run its fi-nal course,
And nothing but divine remorse
Attends the last aperitif:
It is the very taste of grief.
While We’re At It
The Republican Party and the Trump White House protect and promote vice industries that exploit Americans, especially…
Letters—October 2026
I’m grateful for Stephan Pax Leonard’s essay on his conversion to Orthodoxy (“Why I Became Orthodox,” June/July…
The Stench of Corruption
The Trump family’s exploitation of every opportunity to enrich themselves demoralizes me, as I’m sure it does…