Orpheus Listens to the Requiem of His Own Undoing
(after Leonard Kress)
Orpheus hears his songs played on broken strings,
A dirge plucked soft by an old man with blight.
He laughs at this fiasco, cringes as it rings,
Echoes bending, whispering through trees at night.
Behind him, nova bass lines swell and roll.
He imagines the dancers weaving in a line,
The wading birds now gone—silent in their toll,
Their scattered iambs left to beachgoers’ time.
He turns back—loses his time, theirs too.
He pleads; time will not rewind for beggars.
He cries; sorrow will not soften, nor undo.
He sets his vision on a new career—foreteller.
He fixes his fate, throwing his guitar,
Its keys, its chords—all song surrendered to riptide’s pulse.
