Gods and Mortals Poems by IOAKIM IOAKIM

Fifty poems. Every tradition. One collection.

Gods and Mortals is a collection of long narrative poems from the mythological world — Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian, Celtic, Mesopotamian, Aztec, Japanese, West African, and beyond. Each poem enters a single myth, a single figure, a single moment, and stays there long enough to understand what it costs.

Vulcan's Answer — He was thrown from Olympus and his legs were broken and his wife preferred Mars. He went to the forge. The thunderbolts he made struck just the same. The armor he made held. Everything he made held. That is the answer to the throwing and the falling and the laughing.

What Fortuna Knows — She knows nothing about you. That is the point of the blindfold. You were born somewhere with no say in where, in a body you did not select, in a century you did not choose, and the wheel was already turning when you got here. Carpe diem: not because seizing guarantees anything, but because it is the only response to the blindfolded goddess that is not simply waiting for the wheel to turn you over.

Inanna Descends — At the first gate she gave her crown. At the second gate she gave her earrings. She arrived before Ereshkigal stripped of everything. She hung on a hook for three days. The world above stopped. She came back. The descent did not end her. The descent completed her.

Odin Hangs on the Tree — Nine days. Nine nights. The spear in his side. No food. No water. What he was looking for was in the dark beneath him. The wisdom that can only be earned by the sacrifice of the self to the self cannot be given. You hang on the tree. You wait for the shapes to become visible. They become visible when the hanging has gone on long enough.

Gilgamesh Returns to the Walls — The oldest story in recorded literature is about grief. Not about the victory. Not about the immortality achieved. About the grief, and the search that grief organized, and the failure of the search, and the return to the walls that would outlast the searcher. Build the walls. They will outlast you. They will carry you in them.

Anansi Keeps the Stories — The Sky God had all the stories. Anansi wanted them. The Sky God named the price. Anansi paid it with cleverness rather than force. He paid the price. He received the stories. The stories belong to the spider. When you hear a story, remember who paid for it.

Fifty poems spanning the full range of world mythology — the forge and the wheel and the flood and the descent and the weighing and the crossing and the fire stolen and the thread cut. Each poem stands alone. Together they form a complete account of what the mythological world understood about being human.