2020
What untimely punishment
Befell the priest Laocöon.
How the man must lament
That son, father, and son
Suffer as one but won’t repent.
How could he, that truth-telling sage,
Take back the fatal words?
Troy should be convinced by age—
If not by priestly cords.
And yet, the serpents rage.
Upturned faces, agony
Straining, reaching, clawing.
Why have you forsaken me—
Tell me why this suffering?
Asks priest of the frothing sea.
The gods with cruel and shifting whims
Ensnare the truthful, innocent
Away the serpents writhe and swim—
Away the serpents, heaven-sent
The gods, they never answered him…
P. A. Wilson, 
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