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galatea
the love child of walt whitman and sylvia plath | I contain multitudes
17/F   

Poems

fray narte  Dec 2022
Galatea
fray narte Dec 2022
Such a classic mortal blunder to lay
my spine as it erodes, graceless, inelegant
on Galatea’s cold, ivory arms;
such delicate carvings can never be human, look human,
feel human under my lonesome bones.

I long to see you flinch and break
into fine, liquid, rain of dust blinding me,
covering the walls of this room
in a blameless shade of white: a new asylum ward
for my kind of insanity,
you say.
It envelopes like light around my awe
and my forlorn limbs,
tangled with Galatea’s unmoving ones.
I look for comfort within brittle carcasses
scraped of everything they could ever give.

The quiet persists eerily.
But here, Pygmalion’s gifts remain untainted:
the apex of auger shells, the beak of a songbird
the blunted ceriths, the rusty chisels
all impaling my spinal bones.
Yet the sculptor’s kisses, long erased,
the careful carvings, long defaced,
long reduced into a Grecian ruin.
I bury my body on your arms yet they find no rest
against the ghostly pleas of mammalian tusks.

How many for your fingers?
How many for your hair?


Tell me, Galatea, were you carved to bear the weight of
all the sea salt I swallowed as I drowned?
Soften under my meandering thoughts; I long
to see you flinch and break — like all the dead elephants —
any reminder that you yield pliantly to the voice
of the love goddess, that you were once turned human.
Break now, your solid arms, under my own collapse
over the sea foam caught on fire.

I am no longer bending and weeping to pick myself up.
Here it all goes down and ends:
my bones,
and yours,
burning,
snapping.
Nothing —
nothing less glorious will last after us.

— Fray Narte
written October 18, 2022, 1:35 pm
John F McCullagh Dec 2011
Pygmalion beseeched Aphrodite:
"Goddess, please answer my plea:
Give life to my dear Galatea,
that she may live always with me. “

The goddess, in a generous mood,
animated your figure Divine.
Your *******, generous in proportion,
Your bubble **** one of a kind.

Your skin is a fine alabaster;
Like marble, but warm to the touch.
Could your sculptor have done any better?
No, I’m sure there is only one such.

With golden, shoulder length tresses
and lips, apple red, candy sweet.
It’s not much of a mystery, really,
That Pygmalion was swept off his feet.
The story of Pygmalion and Galatea
Tori Jurdanus Jun 2012
David, like David and Goliath, like the statue
was made in 1501 by Michaelangelo.
A fatherless son, born perfect to the world. Full Grown.
But in Italy, they'll tell you that Michaelangelo
never wanted to be a sculpter;
That he was an artist but that his gift was his curse.

Yet he still managed to create this marvelous marble masterpiece.
Gave the world beauty to call it beautiful and behold it for hundreds of years,
because heaven knows he never would.

But sometimes I feel like you see yourself more like Galatea.

But a rose by any other name might smell more sweet than thee,
My fair, dark lady,
Only to be loved by those of your statue.
I mean, stature.

My fair, dark lady,
who chased me from the light in spite of just wanting to help
the charity case.

My fair, dark lady,
I made you to be a hero,
But a villain you became.

How can one love the name of a rose proud enough
To ***** the finger of tender green thumbs?

Still, its handed a clean slate for the sake of soft petals.
Justified by sweet smells and vibrant colours.
Excused.

Just, if only I could forget the thorns,
I'd have spoken "Love" differently.

I wanted to love you like no other sister would,
but couldn't.

I wanted a savior to stay even when things are okay,
wouldn't you?
When the giants weren't around.

Well, who's hero are you now?

Tell me how a statue saves lives,
rather than turning to stone when the sun rises
And I will eagerly believe.

Or don't.

Strike your pose.

Bask in the spotlight.

It's what you wanted.
It's what you got.

Hear them say "Galatea."
Not marble but ivory,
"Eliza."
"Aphrodite."

And believe them.
"Perfection created."

But I'll call you David;
Never abandoned,
forever alone.

Because humans don't need solution or heroes to depend on.
We need friends.

Well, congratulations, beautiful.

Everyone loves you.

Except, the people who should.
To understand all my references in this poem, feel free to look up the following.

Pygmalion (Greek mythology)
Pygmalion (The play)
My Fair Lady (The musical)

The Dark Lady sonnets (Shakespeare)
Romeo and Juliet (Juliet's first soliliquy, Shakespeare)

David & Goliath (Michaelangelo, history)

wikipedia that stuff ^