She abides in her circular chamber,
prophet to the oracular God.
Perched delicately a top a three-legged mount,
engulfed in a haze,
an hallucinogenic cloak.
A mystic figure,
clutching branches of laurel in her Delphian hands,
a bronze bowl of water cradled consciously in her lap.
Her hair as dark as the fates she acquaints.
A cape of red flows like the blood
of those who perished from her
manic counsels.
Aberration is evident in her dazed eyes.
At times her body thrashes
with apparent anger and confusion.
Her limbs then go limp.
A painted smile bleeding across her face,
delirium manifested.
A warning set in stone:
“Know thy self.”
Pay no attention to the opinion of the masses:
advice to be heeded.
The hollow-horned shivers
from head to hoof.
Sacrificed for knowledge of the future
yet unknown.
Her hysterical beauty sanctions
the nonsensical prophecies.
“My wife is with child,
if I contend with the enemy,
will I return to my family?”
She stares into the water,
her face distorted,
for the reflection she sees is not her own.
"You will go,
you will return,
not in the battle you will perish."
Her red cape became
more prominent in colour.
Her ambiguity brought a child
into the world
without a father.
"You will go,
you will return not,
in the battle you will perish."
the Greek Oracle at Delphi
