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Blase
The camera dipped as I stared
Seeing a sweet seraphim, with icy eyes
That drooped with all the whispered secrets
That spill from the mountains to the
Bottomless depth of his soul.
I’ll bring out the laughter that make
The harps sound hollow when played.
Ah, the sculpture stands stricken
And the artist throws his brushes
And the birds go death taciturn silence
And the wind stops his gentle sway
And the trees start murmuring his name
Laden with honey and sunshine but truant of love.
I’ll love him he said
As softly as he wonders I’ll desperately follow.
And I’ll chase after the shadows that offer a trace of his sigh.
And butcher the serpents that slither
In his head or feet only to torment,
But he’ll slip with Hermes to the underworld
Deceiving me of our eternity;
For he is my Ares and Aphroditus.
If only he knew
I’ve acquired all of him,
Yet he does not perceive.
His days loitering the streets as
As an uncaged bird to the
Melody of his quicksilver feet.
Yet only if he knew;
Only if he knew.
He’ll know soon of my devotion
As I lull him to my abode.
He’ll know soon of my proclivity
As I barred the entrance and the views of the sky.
His adoration will recrudesce
As his crisp trepidation will fade.
He discerns now.
Moving his sweet limbs quick to music in a dance
He’d waned from my espy.
Though I procured him before he set
His feet on the virulent vines, olive trees.
So, he danced instead on the weed-choked field
Away from the peril and in my vicinity; for he’s
My Patroclus and I cannot let him elapse away
A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
As the maroon spread like a flame.
I plunged into oblivion leaving my Philtatos (most beloved)
I peered as he irrevocably danced onto the
Vines and the trees, away from safely of his
Well- aimed stone, as I plunged into the
Shuddering River of Styx;
For I was the beast imprisoning the beauty.
Who would tell the boy it was untrue for
His captor was not a beast but a heavenly being.
They lived a life of bliss and love
Among the old decent folk,
Where bored officials lounged cracking jokes
Between the mass and majesty of this world all,
That carries weight and always weighs the same.
Lay in the hands of other, they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride, their tradition, their culture.
And died as men before their bodies died.
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept
So the serpent slides slowly away with his moments of laughter
But the bamboo hangs heavy in the bondage of quicksilver daydreams
For an innocent life was forfeited from hubris (pride)
Thoughts elicited from Lyssa, goddess of rage herself.
For dreaming of an eternity with anyone but a woman
Would be considered a sin, a crime enough for a hateful death.
Owed to their culture (a vulture), their traditions, their community
Fated like Achilles and Patroclus they were,
“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”
-From Ashi, aged 15.
Poetry is up for interpretation but my inspiration for this piece was a story I read on a hate crime. A man is resentfully killed by a vendor as he casually let it slip of the birthday cake being for his husband. This is the re-telling of the man's husband as he struggles to cope with the absolute suddenness of the news, grappling with the strings of reality.