The Calm

August 30, 2023
Ethan McGuire
Creative & Poetry

The pit or the pendulum,
the rifle or the bayonet,
the choice of pyre or pyre—
it’s all the same to me,
only the flame or the fire.

Just let me past
that suffocating silence,
the pregnant calm
before the coming storm,
the hair-raising static
or incandescent terror
before the lighting strike.

Ethan McGuire

Ethan McGuire is a writer and a healthcare cybersecurity professional whose essays, fiction, poetry, reviews, and translations have appeared in The Dispatch, Emerald Coast Review, Literary Matters, New Verse News, Post Modern Conservative, and University Bookman, among other publications, and he is the author of a new art and poetry chapbook, Songs for Christmas. He lives with his wife and daughter in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The Calm

The pit or the pendulum,
the rifle or the bayonet,
the choice of pyre or pyre—
it’s all the same to me,
only the flame or the fire.

Just let me past
that suffocating silence,
the pregnant calm
before the coming storm,
the hair-raising static
or incandescent terror
before the lighting strike.

Ethan McGuire

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The pit or the pendulum, the rifle or the bayonet, the choice of pyre or pyre— it’s all the same to me, only the flame or the fire.

Just let me past that suffocating silence, the pregnant calm before the coming storm, the hair-raising static or incandescent terror before the lighting strike.

Ethan McGuire

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Subscribe to VoegelinView via Email

The pit or the pendulum,
the rifle or the bayonet,
the choice of pyre or pyre—
it’s all the same to me,
only the flame or the fire.

Just let me past
that suffocating silence,
the pregnant calm
before the coming storm,
the hair-raising static
or incandescent terror
before the lighting strike.