MEDUSA
stared into
the face of suffering
your
hard suffering
that turns
to stone
turned me
to stone
relief to
my soft
suffering
equality in
the transaction
turning us
both
to stone
and they we were
amongst, what she
we call them
that
host of statues,
perhaps effigies?
but there you are
reptilian, murderous,
no crown
of thorns to adorn
only headdress of vipers
spitting, writhing,
their eyes
trying to make sense
of my pity
my sorrow
only thing to
match
your anger
blow for blow
run with your wrath
WITH MEDUSA
I had tea
with Medusa
on Solaris (was
hell striving to convince
her I had
been invited)
joke being
that he who fathered me
swore I could
never grow man enough
to be turned
into stone
and then,
of course, so much
snake myself that she
could not but
feel comfortable
dialing down the ancient wrath
to what
barely rose above
a frown
and thus enough frissance,
and indeed camaraderie,
to sustain
this sudden
turn to ceremony, leading
to the pouring
and imbibing of (obviously)
milkless green tea
and thus
taking time out to wonder
which of us
might be real, unless both,
or even neither
or as
the planet itself might
elect to determine
constructed exclusively
from
memories
or producr of
the dialogue, dialectic, between
the snakes
in both our systems
and the alien intellect rooted
in Solaris itself
(such a bugbear, and liberation,
how the human
brain
finds itself shaped to
divine and interpret)
poems 2 die for