Circe

Another mythology poem. I wrote it a while ago, but it seems I never posted it.

               Circe

Can I help it if men are pigs?
They blame it on my wand, my wiles,
my wantonness, but I merely
show them the way they were
already headed; I simply herd the swine
and tame the wild stallions before
they meet a fitting fate – all but
Odysseus, whose resistance
proved irresistible, who loved
me and left me here, big-bellied
and broken-hearted, wondering
if there truly are other fish in the sea.

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.

.

Polyphemus

I'm thinking of starting a series of poems based on mythology.  Have already done one on Medusa and John Barth's book Chimera got me thinking about doing some more.

      Polyphemus

1.
Even before my blindness,
my eyesight was not the best.
We one-eyed creatures lack depth
perception and are not known
for our vision’s breadth.

My world was my cave,
my sheep, and my isle, all bound
by the boundless sea. An outcast
of outcasts- my bitter brothers.
shunning me as the bitterest

Since I’d fallen farthest,
from Zeus’s favorite forger
of custom thunderbolts for
all occasions, to the one
he blamed for his own error.

Imprison the armorer
and let the killer go free.
It was He who struck Apollo’s
sons, not my brothers and me,
but what the gods will, will be.

2.
Our visitors are few,
mostly shipwrecked sailors
too scared by our stature
or anything but sobs and screams,
incoherent rapture.

Until one spoke up calmly,
modestly calling himself
No One and offering me
the gift of wine. I promised
to eat him last – as welcome company.
And my reward for sparing
his life? Sharp stick, sharper poke
and the blind rage of betrayal.
“No One has done this!” I roared,
stupid straight man to a stupid joke.

Then I almost had the last
laugh, for No One had his blind
spot, too: his pride calling out
his real name- and my father’s curse.
Ill winds blew his boat from bad to worse.

But his trials turned to triumphs,
his trip became The Odyssey;
my brief infamy sparked his eternal fame.
I became the unsightly sideshow freak
who helped No One make his name.