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Kelly Bitangcol Sep 2016
I have always been fascinated by mythology. I remember seeing my older sisters with a greek mythology book, and wishing I could be in high school so I can know it already. I was interested in the mythical creatures, in the gods and goddesses, in the battles, and just like everyone, I was interested in the love stories. I wanted to learn it with passion for I heard it was the inspiration of almost all the modern literature that I love. I could still remember feeling excited to be in class and discuss it. And now that I have reached high school, and I also reached my dream of studying greek mythology and not only that, because I reached it with you. We learned about the titans, the gods and goddesses, the olympians, the monsters, the stories. We were both engrossed and captivated by it, that mythology was the only thing we ever talked about. We even related it to real life, we related people to the characters. Whenever we see a person we know, we would think of the character that best resembles them, and we will start calling them their characters that we decided them to be. We called our friend Athena, we called your cousin Apollo, we even called someone the Minotaur. And that’s what our teacher told us, that not because it’s fantasy that immediately means it cannot happen in real life. The stories there, are reality, the only difference is, they added magic into them. We loved greek mythology so much that we related it to everything. However I realised something, we related it to everything except to ourselves. So I asked you, “Who are we?”. You told me, “Baby, we’re no one there, for we will make our own mythology. We will make the greatest one, so beautiful that it would surpass the best literature of all time.” Your favourite one was Plato’s quote, you would never shut up telling me the story that “humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.” And you would always tell me, that you wished to tell Zeus you found yours already. I expected myself to love the romance most, for myself to have the love stories as my favourite. But instead, I loved the opposite,  I loved the tragedies.


I don’t know why, but I found myself loving the tragic stories. I found myself loving the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The ultimate tragic love story, in which Orpheus would have brought Eurydice back to life if only he had done what Hades said. Orpheus went to the underworld to ask Hades to bring back Eurydice, but Hades had one condition, he should not look back while his wife was still in the dark, for that would undo everything he hoped for. He should wait for Eurydice to get into the light before he looked at her. But then, Orpheus couldn’t control himself, he looked at Eurydice and hugged her, then suddenly Eurydice was drawn back to the underworld.


And who would ever forget Pyramus and Thisbe? The star crossed lovers who had families who hated each other and whispered sweet nothings through a crack in the wall that separates their houses. And they decided to run away, but when Thisbe showed up under the mulberry tree, a ****** jawed lioness was there. So Thisbe ran, and just when Pyramus arrived, he saw the lioness ripping apart Thisbe’s shawl. Thinking that Thisbe died, Pyramus stabbed himself. And when Thisbe returned and figured out what happened, she stabbed herself too. To this day, the formerly white berries of the mulberry tree are stained red with the blood of these tragic lovers.


Here comes my favourite story of all, the myth of Icarus. Icarus and his father attempted to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Daedalus cautioned him that flying too near the sun would cause the wax to melt. And because of hubris, Icarus ignored his father’s instructions and flew too close to the sun. Then the wax in his wings melted and he fell into the sea.


When I was reading the stories, epiphany suddenly hit me. Perhaps the reason why I loved tragedies so much because we’re turning into one. I finally got the answer to my question when I asked you who we are. Maybe we are Orpheus and Eurydice, we loved each other too much that we would do everything just to be together. But we ignored all the warnings, we thought love was the only thing that really mattered. We never got to control our feelings and we forgot everything, because of that, we were separated from each other. Or we could also be Pyramus and Thisbe, we are the perfect definition of lovers who almost made it, who almost achieved happiness, who almost became the greatest lovers of all time but then we never became one, we became tragic ones. And darling, perhaps Icarus resembles us the most. We are both Icarus, our wings, are ourselves,  and love, is the sun. Everybody told us not to get too near the sun, for the wax in our wings will melt, we will lose our wings because we are too close to the thing that could save and destroy us both. And just like Icarus, we disobeyed the rules.  We flew too close to the sun, look at us now.

As we were walking out of each other’s lives, I realised something. We were not meant to create the greatest story of all time that it would top the best literature. We were never making our own mythology, because we were just bound to become another tragedy. Another tragedy that people will love, and I still don’t know why, but people tend to see something beautiful in it. And maybe, just maybe, people will also see something beautiful in our tragic story. But just like Orpheus and Eurydice, Pyramus and Thisbe, Icarus; one thing is for sure, my love. We will achieve a thing we both wanted,  **we will never be forgotten.
PoserPersona May 2019
Better to be Pyramus and Thisbe
than god Apollo and Daphne?
As love oft triumphed by envy.
Oh to be Abelard and Heloise
or Juliet you and Romeo me!
Cleopatra, Marc Antony,
Orpheus, and Eurydice!
Martyrs to Cupid, were you wary
of the price to pay? Did you find peace
from Plato’s coined mental disease
in Pluto’s long halls of Hades
or the self induced daily shade of trees?
What of love dooming kin to Achilles?
When Dido and Aeneas meet
is her suicide guaranteed?
Pray tell us, can true love ever be free!
Brandon Conway Jun 2018
There was once a poet from long ago
Who stories told of transformations
I shall tell of one that you may not know
Pyramus and Thisbe who loved through a cracked foundation

Whose houses were connected, neighbors were they
Families ensnared in rivalry and outrage
Oh how did it so weigh
On these blind lovers left with lips to assuage!

A crack so small only a desperate lover could see
A whisper only could dance through to ease
Two star-crossed lovers crouching on hands and knees
Expressing words that warm and please

To bring to light
Their love they did agree
To meet late at night
By the white mulberry tree

Thisbe first to show and await did she
Until a loud rustle filled the air
Frightened she ran off and hid thee
So fast her veil escaped the grasp of her hair

A lioness fresh from feeding
Paraded on passing by,
She went sniffing and licking
Veil now red left under the midnight sky

Pyramus, with the white specked tree in view
Sees just an empty sheath
Just a mulberry tree under a blanket of moonlit blue
With a crimson soaked veil underneath

Thinking he lost his heart's desire
She the cure to eternal strife
Life now nothing but mire
Wishes to follow her in afterlife

A sword he did reveal
With both hands set and firm
Fell on this stinging steel
Left as food for the callous worms

Oh how his blood did gush
Painting white mulberries incarnadine
Thisbe returning in such a rush
For Pyramus she did pine

A lifeless corpse awaits for her
Under that maledict tree
Blood soaked veil she did incur
So she dropped to one knee

Life without him she hated
A breast she did beat
Cried to the gods, fated
His sword she did greet

Forbidden love changed white to red
The berries we have today
Ill fated lovers left dead
To embrace in rot and decay

Together on the pyre
Rivalry has come to end
Lovers cradled in fire
Ashes in one urn, together again.
Isaac Sands Jul 2012
There is a Raven
Perched upon my window sill,
Its talons tearing into the paint.
The tick-tock
Of a grandfather clock
Resounds throughout the walls,
Matching the scritching-scratching
Of the ravens claws.
I sit in the corner,
As I have for night after night,
Not sleeping,
Never sleeping,
Simply sitting and waiting.
The Raven begins
To tap-tap-tap
At the window pane.

And I sit

And wait.


How long now has it been?
Since my Sun,
So beautiful at its Dawn,
Had left its Noon-time heights
For an untimely Setting?
Sadly grieveous as it had been,
My Sunset had been darkly beautiful,
Asplash with deep reds and purple,
Crowned in gold.

Oh that I had been Pyramus and she Thisbe.
Star-crossed and Tragic,
A love made eternal by mutual deaths.
Alas, it was not to be,
For I am no Pyramus and she no Thisbe.
She went ahead of me
And not by choice of her own,
By my blade yet not her hand.
And after her I would chase,
Pleaing forgiveness on bended knee
In that next dream.

Yet I am afraid,
Of the knife,
Her scorn,
Her embrace.

And so I sit

And wait.

The Raven is at my window,
Talons scratching divots in the sill.
The resounding of the clock
Still surrounds me,

As I sit

And wait.
Bell Apr 2021
yestereve we succame
A lengthy ballad of longing
formerly one of obstinance
flared in a cacophony of passion

Whilst usually twirling in a seemly epitome fashion,
yestereve a caprice thought laid heavy on hearts
as there was no doubt of desire
nor were there objections to her
for even when my affections consumed you
lady desire was just an inexorable

yestereve she picked petals from a Sinensis blossom
there went the pain
any semblance of grudge
along with sanity
reason
and lastly, walls as carefully constructed as that of Pyramus and Thisbe's
such vulnerability unmatched
for your sweet scent lulled me from the arms of reason
for reason, although safe,
is the most intricate and fragile part of the ballad
and the first to fall victim to the cascade

What a fool I must be to have gladly forgotten the kinks of your hands
or the freckles on the back of your neck that form a perfect triad.
The way your upper lip curls when you grin
made my glissade blissful and passionate
Your flustered twirl
the very epitome of aubade

Ignorant of the harsh retombe of reality
Your flustered face En L'air
Every touch a pleasant surprise that formed a grand symphony

A moment of unfiltered emotion
A heavenly ballad
so cruelly of yestereve.
twas hard to replicate this feeling after knowing how it all ends
PoetWhoKnowIt Jun 2014
Fantastically fashioned fingers,
  running smoothly through hair;
past present post-
  Father Time struck by Sand Man's stare.


Heavenly hanging hair,
  draping gently over lips;
tantalizing teasing tendrils-
  Aphrodite's mien, Venus' hips.

Lusciously loving lips,
  smiling softly at wandering eyes;
delirious delighted daze-
   Pyramus and Thisbe's kiss--butterflies.

Efficaciously effervescent...
  enchantingly endearing...
    enticingly euphoric...
      exultantly excited...
[Simply] ethereal! Eyes,
  diamonds, starlight, life, of Earth, sky, and sea;
bejeweled boundless bless'ed-
   If thou were Medusa, stone I'd be so readily.

Simply said Shakespeare,
  thou art the sun;
falsely framed fairness-
  for the sun is not brightest,
    tis You tis You,
      my wonderful, beautiful One.
Benjamin Dec 2018
Packed in the back seat of
your cramped Chevy Lumina,
and parked on the frontage road
behind the conifers
in your backyard—

the moon is low, a jaundice yellow,
the car is stalled, the heater grumbled;
you pull me in to warm me up,
my glasses fog,
you steal my smile—

[Your father, for his Sunday sermon,
packed the house—Leviticus:
“’Their blood shall be upon them,’ and
all God’s children said?”
“Amen.”]

Our breath condensed, whisper-white,
traced our initials on the window—
in after-laughing afterglow,
you swallow, nervous,
before you kiss me.

We don’t let go, till cabin lights
illuminate your father’s form—
the verse, full force, the wrath of God,
a hurricane—
a Horrible.

I never saw you afterward,
poor pastor’s son, where have you gone?
Like Pyramus, at the sight of blood
on Thisbe’s veil—
we don’t prevail.
ross  Apr 8
i see you.
ross Apr 8
i’m here again.
i see you without seeing you
i feel you without touch
another night, black words
on white walls
i find myself hopelessly
seeking you out.
restless, relentless
i no longer know what i even
hope to find at its end.
perhaps only the stinging comfort
of knowing your near
within my grasp
like the gods of old
filling the night sky
with so much wonder
for i to only look upon in awe.
like pyramus and thisbe
through a crack in the wall
we whisper our love.
you are engraved within me
this cannot be for nothing
i refuse it.
countless moons
have come and went
radio silence
an entire world between us
yet i cannot give up;
the idea of you.
i exist in a fantasy,
a childlike dream
i peel back the veil of time
and gaze into you once more.
i do not know
what souls are made of
but what ever it is;
ours are the same.
and if that is all
we where ever destine to be
a flicker in time
a fleeting moment
a blip in space;
then i have cheated
fate from her cruel wish.
for i have lived out
countless life's
with you in my mind  
my muse;
i have dreamt you
into my existence;
and here you remain.
John Taylor Jan 2015
Nail my hands to the stars, call them Pyramus and Thisbe
Whisper to me with your moon kissed lips, through the cracks in your bones
   And tell me of the sweet nothingness that plauges you                                
As I watch the sun begin to rise in your eyes
Something I wrote for fun, enjoy :)

— The End —