Tag Archives: mythology

OF ORPHEUS

OF ORPHEUS

nothing stopped
slowed down

the clockwork
kept running

Hermes
on time with
all the crucial mail

and lacking all hiatus
the merest suggestion
of a frozen moment

flesh and
spirit
      finding themselves divided
wondered how the
world could
yet
  be green

time ticking and my lyre
learning of this
to spite
    every serpent, in the main
those deadly
in their venom

refused to play, eschewed
all that can
plug in, be electric

and me looking back
not eyes dead ahead on
the road to
consummate
my love

should have them glued
sold my limbs on the dream
of finally
    your touch

for real
not in this most
central of myths, key
to our
entire mythology

ultimate heart of
every lost dream

ANACONDA

ANACONDA

syllable by
masticated syllable

came across you
filling that legendary belly
devouring every
morsel
of my name

seems
my being a snake too
according to
the ancient astrology

made me
as regards foodstuff
near
    exact fit for you

a task for you
to slide into wisely
without apprehension

if you were
      to call it
a marriage here not
of convenience

but
made it Heaven

consummated
in Hell, in devilish fashion

I would have
to agree

although
equally I might just add

it sounds
just
   as good

the other way round.

ARACHNE

ARACHNE

I implored
the goddess
for an advance
to cover my needs

willfully mishearing
she proffered advice regarding
my need for brevity,
to come to the point

write the scenes
in strict succession
creating characters
who could not
fail
   to convince

and thus, my fingers
immediately responded
inspired divinely

exploded at once
across the keyboard
worlds
    apart from my usual plod

pinging away, spinning tales
rich in revolutionary output
soon impinging
upon a critical mass

whereupon
    I dreamt such

a perfectly sound and logical
left-brained dream

much scissor snip snap
and fabric flowing
output growing

and the clothes by no
means invisible but
fit for an Emperor

consummately tailored
yet desperately clinging

whilst
     the goddess acknowledging
my supremacy in
the very shape
    ot this transformation
ss I
rappel, abseil, become
finest
      weaver of treachery

suspended by
the divine strength of silk,
my silk

and you now dangling, reader,
hanging on for dear life.

VISITATION

VISITATION

Had a bad dream. A stinker.

Dionysus, Apollo
moving in
as next
door neighbours

tightest of brothers
bitterest of rivals

neatly trimmed
the hedges between them
swarming with vipers

and me
in my own garden
drinking posh tea
Ambrosia flavoured

when
     at their joint house party
episode war erupted
after guests
spoke brazenly
           reacted ill-advisedly

blows, shots
exchanged, heavenly dactylic
style of sibling fighting

and all caught as collateral
in a disciplined rush
to
   escape to high ground
live to tell the story

and me
waking from this dream
finding myself
worse off
    plunged into another

hated, loved
by the gods

lost
    at sea, shipwrecked unless
forever sailing

no sight of land
just the great
            fiction of Elysium  Hades, Olympus

eternal wine-dark sea.
   

PROMISED LAND

PROMISED LAND

succubi
  could not keep their
claws, feelers,
hands,
    tentacles (the whole
caboodle) to themselves
or whatever

and she
    of snake coronet and
stony glare

stood as an edifice
rock
   of ages in
a desert of desire

inclined if for just
a foretaste, foreshadow,
to prostrate
   herself before him

there to find her, fix her, frenzy her, feed
her,

fashion her into
something the gods who
thus condemned her
might not
   fully comprehend

running those serpents
through his fingers

sifting for gold through
her every
   grain  of sand

turning her click back
way before history

right to the border
of all (so-called) promised land

LEFT TO SAY


LEFT TO SAY

since she
is
   goddess,
divine

it would have to be
mortal Adonis
to make the sacrifice
to tell their story

get
  those beautiful,
painful words
upon the page

and there it was, their
love saga
     captured forever
magnificent creation

and there Adonis lying
finally in the arms of grieving          Aphrodite

mission accomplished, nothing
more for him left to achieve
nothing more
        left to say