Cassandra

Another mythology poem.  This one's about the princess of Troy who could see the future but whose warnings were never believed.

     Cassandra

As a child, I always ignored my mother,
and caught cold without my coat, fell
when I ran too fast, burned myself on
plates she said were hot. Only my vision
survived the light too dim to read by.

Now I know what it is to be the unbelieved:
my beloved Troy in ruins, my lover and me
slaughtered, and my soul finding no solace
in saying, like my mother, I told you so. I told you so.

Danae

Another mythological poem, helped along by a painting by Gustav Klimt. 

For those of you whose mythology is rusty, Danae's father, King Acrisius,  locks her in a bronze tower to keep her from having a son who, an oracle prophesied, would kill him.  Zeus visits her there as golden rain, resulting in the birth of Perseus, the Avenger.  Her father Acrisius then casts his daughter and grandson adrift in a boat or chest, hoping they die, but instead they are rescued and end up in the court of King Polydectes.  This king falls in love with Danae, but she is too involved in raising her son to notice.  Polydectes tries to eliminate Perseus by sending him on what he expects to be a fatal quest for the head of Medusa.  In Perseus's absence, Polydectes presses Danae to marry him.  Perseus returns (along with Princess Andromeda, who he has rescued from a sea monster along the way) and interrupts the wedding, turning Polydectes to stone with Medusa's head.  When he and his mother return to their home, Acrisius flees. Perseus attends an ahtletic competition, and his discus accidentally flies into the crowd, killing a spectator - who turns out being his grandfather, Acrisius. 

      Danae

My father tried to keep me pure, as if
my virginity would cancel his mortality,
but phallic towers make poor prophylactics.

Didn’t he know after such isolation
any stranger would seem a god
and any son would be a vengeance?

So Perseus was my sole salvation.
He would travel where I could never go
as Polydectes planned to make me his own –
but all he brought back were monsters,
a Gorgon’s head and a bride-to-be.

When you flee your fate in this rounded world,
the farther you run, the closer you come
to where you began. I know this now
as my father lies dead from a discus
he could not sidestep, my son ascends
the throne and a marriage bed, and I become
an old woman trapped in an ageing body
with nothing but a memory of my own
wetness turning to a shower of golden rain.

.

Galatea

Another mythological poem.  The sculptor Pygmalion fell in love with his own statue, Galatea.  She was modeled after Aphrodite, and that goddess brought her to life for him.

     Galatea

It’s not easy being Aphrodite
made marble and put on a pedestal
to be shaped by one man’s desires.

It’s even harder to be made flesh
and step down into his world without
disappointing him, so I first turned part

of him to stone, hoping he would love his
own lust, even if he did not love me,
and would not notice my imperfections.

But then the real miracle occurred:
as we aged together, he saw my flaws-
my wrinkles, my worries, my silly fears-
and did not look away.

In this way we found something stronger than stone,
human love Aphrodite has never known.

Close Shave

Last June, I fully shaved my face for the first time in forty years.

      Close Shave

I got rid of my beard
to get of rid of the years
that grayed it, but then found
the skin beneath had sagged
and folded where it had
once been firm, and when I
cut myself, I bleed.