SATOR OPERA TENET
TENET OPERA SATOR
As ye sow, so shall ye reap— The Sator Square
After the late night, I did not get much sleep.
Fatigue fell from me in slow, heavy peels,
as I was turning over memories of rounds of lager,
carousing in a hotel bar with the expat regal.
After the second round, I felt a shift: an internal lever.
Despite work the next day, I still wanted to revel,
and I fancied the hostess across the room, only to repel
her gaze—in her eyes, no more than an autumnal leper.
Later, the exchange with my friend fell into silent stops,
and muddled arguments made for awkward spots.
A younger me would have moved on to other spots,
but the elder me has learned the weight of stops.
As we walked home, I kept my distance like a leper,
for there was a frothing malice in her I tried to repel—
naked bitterness surfaced after the late-night revel,
baring shark-toothed words with no escape, no lever.
A festal illusion dispelled, far from regal,
after rounds of cocktails, red wine, rosé, and lager…
In the gloom of my room, the night lingered in peals.
Reposed in bed, my mind raced, refusing to sleep.
~written in Semordnilap Couplets
After failing to create a SATOR Square, the idea of writing a poem using semordnilaps (palindromes spelled backwards) emerged. Each couplet is composed of a word and its reverse, and at the midpoint, the sequence is mirrored.
SLEEP
LAGER
LEVER
REVEL
STOPS
SPOTS
LEPER
REVEL
REGAL
PEELS
Photo by Михаил Секацкий on Unsplash
opusculum 