You all know that I'm partial to poetry...

[valis2]

...and that I rarely find any HP-themed poetry.

Well, thanks to a rec from crack_broom today, I've found a terrific, thought-provoking series of poems. It's very spare, humorous, bleak, and full of tiny electric particals that will buzz within you long after you finish it. Even better, it is very accessible, whether you enjoy poetry or not--it's so tightly and fluidly written that it's sure to affect nearly everyone.

It's called Silence and Esoterica, by cedarlibrarian. It follows Severus through his many decisions and thoughts. It's pre-DH, so Severus's core rests on a different weight than what we know now, but don't skip it because of that--it's still relevant, and it's full of dark, creeping thoughts. It was written for kinda_lush with the prompt "Honor."

It's a progression of poems. A taste of the first few lines:

Just Before My First Year

I knew
from the beginning
that popularity and security
and a predictable future
were
for anyone but me.

If you have any taste for poetry, you should run, not walk, to this work. It's haunting.