Seeing as I’ve published a poem-a-day for the past two days, thought I’d keep the trend alive for a third-time-lucky sorta scenario.
I composed this in first year, 2 years ago now!!! Submitted it as my main Creative Writing piece, but I still rather love it, if you’d forgive my boldness in saying so. Unfamiliar with the Demeter/Persephone myth? Here’s the wikipedia’d take. Any opinions or criticism would be most welcome!
Epistle to Dr. Zeus
I
Dear Doctor, I write in firm truth’s pursuit,
Before this fraud develops to lawsuit.
Defendants such as this you’d wish to save,
From matters of distress - it’d prove too grave
A verdict, both for your career and mine,
For without grapes, who could produce the wine?
So here I now come to attest one truth,
I pray you will not find it too uncouth.
That scent of sandalwood, those bloodstained lips,
In Love, mere mortals’ sights are thus eclipsed.
So long was she this sheltered and protected,
By her dear mother, who never neglected,
To keep their humble council home abound,
With jasmine, sage - sweet roses did surround,
To keep her hidden from the gaze of those,
Who gathered when her silver scent arose.
But she, fair rebel, clad in combat boots,
Dark eyeliner, and hair with aqua roots.
Would often roam with her archaic smile,
Plastered into the depths of dark denial.
And with her nymph’an friends she would descend,
Into that neon mass she’d try to blend.
Her angsty, drugged-out gaze was not enough -
Rough? Yes. But now to prove that she was tough.
A powdered line a razorblade can draw,
Dear Doctor, now you spy the fatal flaw!
A lesson from Kate Moss was the new drill,
Who knew that good looks - minus brains - could kill?
Most certain, our heroine was naïve!
Her heart, so prominent, on her white sleeve.
Though her life was not taken, truth be told,
The symptoms did all seem to fit the mould.
Still, in that throbbing, palpitating sight,
She’d come to shine: a pure and wholesome light.
That even Darkness could not keep away
And like a moth was drawn from black of day,
And plucked this cosmic flower from their midst,
Enveloped her in his black cloak and kissed,
Her tiny, trembling mouth so limply wrought,
Intoxicated thus, her breath was caught.
An arrow drawn from Cupid’s own quiver,
Redundant now, but made the two shiver.
And leaning deeper, hungry in their lust,
Neither suspected that they could combust.
Though weariness shapes wariness as one,
The taking of one path can’t be undone.
He led her down a pretty primrose path,
And further down - “heed not the aftermath.”
He whispered it as delicate refrain;
An act that proved deliciously inane.
For when he tried to garner a response,
He found she was the queen of nonchalance.
II
He took her to a dingy little room,
As dark as night, as serene as the moon.
And here he lavished her with tales of woe,
Of how he was a misunderstood foe.
And whilst she helped herself to scones and tea,
He told her, through his tears that flowed so free:
“It is not folly, nor capricious wit,
Which tether me, so ready to admit -
But merely love, and love that is so real.
I find you too audacious to conceal,
My true intentions, which may come as shock,
A marriage ring shall bind the marriage lock.”
She stamped and stomped and screamed to be released,
But would not leave before enjoying a feast;
A pomegranate seed, a cake or two…
Between the feasting, showed him her tattoo.
It would not take a gen‘ius to construe,
That gluttony was here seen sharp and new.
Meanwhile her mother grew hysterical,
And knocked from door to door, numerical
And ordered in her search to discover,
Where her daughter was held under cover.
The wheat did come to weep, I must confess
And with her all the land lay in distress.
With lands so sad, she sought to search the seas,
All seven of them, yet did not find ease.
The Oracle at Delphi gave no clue
“Some clairvoyant! Some soothsayer! Some fool!”
She cursed under her raw, grief-stricken breath.
This trying journey seemed to signal death.
Never did forever mean so much,
As when a restless mother could not clutch
And embrace in her arms her tender child.
Wonder when she evolved to something wild?
Desperation never took such life,
As now it did, so multiplied by strife.
She looked up at last to the stormy skies,
Berated herself for all those white lies,
And found herself addressing the heavens,
The clouds that lay in layers, steep sevens.
“Helios!” She called obsequiously,
“Bright sun, what is there that you do not see?
My daughter is vanished, where were you then:
On the night of the Twenty-First, at 4pm?”
The mother now looked certainly relieved,
For alibis, so quick, are not conceived.
III
She soon exposed a dingy little room,
Where sunlight fought through perpetual gloom.
The withered leaves, the petals were now dead,
And poor Demeter felt that her heart bled.
And in this land, dear Hades did reside,
Now Persephone suffered from divide.
And here I now come to attest the truth
Before this fraud develops to lawsuit.
That scent of sandalwood, those bloodstained lips,
In Love, mere mortals’ sights are thus eclipsed.
A shattered fist, an undulating sigh.
A cry of mercy and a broken eye,
Will come to pass if something isn’t done.
I ask you now, dear sir, to draw your gun.
How now to deal with those who tempted fate?
How now to chastise and how to berate?
How to, both mother and lover, sedate?
The question: How to settle this debate?
Though I have reviewed all the evidence,
I cannot see who’s worth deliverance.
This case does leave me poor and none the wiser,
I call upon you now, oh great advisor.
So was she altogether free of sin?
Does beauty have a blackened soul within?
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