#iphigenia
King Agamemnon raised a wind
When the whole fleet had lain becalmed.
He’d sacrificed, and hadn’t qualmed.
From horror he could not rescind.
His wife has taken the loss badly.
Not even kings can lessen grief,
Or render the bereft relief.
He’d give his life for hers, and gladly.
And jealousy has made it worse.
The girl is a much younger mate,
But looks and youth can’t replicate
A marriage sorrow can’t reverse.
Any captive’s understandably
A little skittish at the first.
They say she’s mad, that she’s been cursed
With visions of the things to be.
Shamans love to peddle threats
And when the worst misfortune hits
They preen like fortune’s favorites.
And they alone have no regrets.
He had refused a wheedling fraud.
And then a bunch of men got sick.
Confronted by a lunatic,
He’d given in, resigned unawed.
A warlord doesn’t quake from fear
Because a foreign princess whines.
Him frightened by his concubines?
The girl’s annoying but sincere.
Jan 31, 2022
Jan 31, 2022 at 12:48 PM UTC
There, she lies on the altar
Almost held the sun she—
almost in her hands
Opened up, a rose-bud chaste
petal by petal by blood, with
a sting, so sweet and sweet, as
sunset reborn a bee; she was
gold and silver and black at once.
Almost held the sun she—
and no wax wings used
Oh, Icarus, love you did a wild sky,
— yourself a light-licked doom
as your father cried,
Your father cried for you.
A veil as simple sour starlight she wore
as wings of wasps as beetles she giggled
Icarus, flew that you
—and with tongue-tied elation too
Icarus,
she rambled on for hours long.
A letter she held in spring kissed hands
—I will wed you to the sun, her father had sworn.
The sun—and a sun he was,
child of the sea, some sword in honey
dipped; now her awaiting.
And blushed she did herself a dawn
The altar, on the altar.
Almost held the sun she—
Swallowed a mayhem for the father's sin.
Icarus, tell me of the plummet.
Tell me of the greens you saw,
of blues, of whites, of the whirling world—
Men go around around her
their soles all ready
to crush lost skulls an empty moor.
Twirling,
the dust, like may have her hair
before the wedding day
Strands and strands, gently styled—
Spears, swords, rubbed to mirrors,
to lakes lifeless
Armors and ships laden with life, with
sails, the fluttering doves;
As the winds dance once more—
as harbors vacated, as waves torn apart for the horde, as move they on— on too the sun— as
She still lies.
Icarus, Icarus, was it the ocean
that cupped its palms, or did the soil cave in
as down into dark's slick throat you slid?
Surely, was soft, the sea's well-loved mouth,
Surely soft or true
She lies on the altar
a trinket glossy on a hoof, a ****** in the bell,
how does one say—
the valley of lilies, she grew it inside.
Spilled out on the stones, they are fed
to the flies.
Almost held the sun she—
Icarus, must you know
You did not sleep a wretched silence
within the womb of war.
No crescent blades you drank down a leaking throat—
She lies on the altar, vanquished for moon
— for metal upon bone
for blood, for blood, for blood.
A father’s green promise—
Seasoned to rust before the king
Icarus, on the altar she lies—
a ripened land far, far away lures her king
to another rosy worship.
Icarus, Icarus,
on the altar
Aug 3, 2021
Aug 3, 2021 at 7:45 AM UTC